thanks, i wasnt aware the pods needed a large space to breed, i thought the back sump from the aio would have been good enough
well the thing is they don't need much space to breed but they need a lot of food to maintain a growing population since they will be getting eaten at the same time. I'm wanting to eventually do the same thing in same size tank but it's going to require a separate refugium dedicated to microalgae and copepods. Copepods love algae but as tank owners we don't like algae in the display, that's the problem with small tanks