Pods and phyto dosing: light vs dark?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’ve been autodosing live phyto to my tank, in large part to boost pods for my mandarin. I’ve been doing it in the middle
of the night.

But it occurred to me that maybe pods cannot “see” phyto in the dark.
Anyone have thoughts on day vs night dosing of phyto for pods?

 

[twentyleagues]

I like to dose it in the light, for a couple reasons. I shut off my skimmer for a couple hours when I dose so that may or may not affect ph, depends right? Less so if the tank has light. And if the tank is lighted I am most likely awake, I guess I could set my skimmer on a timer and set up auto dosing. I am lazy though and that seems a lot of work to make it all work out correctly.

I dont see any swarms of pods coming out of the rocks when I dose but at night I see them on the glass. I dont think most pods are diurnal so dosing specifically for them may be better at night. Sure seeing pods on the rocks is not easy for us anyway and fish that hunt them still find them in the daylight, so maybe they are active at any time but in my tank they are way more active at night.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I also shut down the skimmer on a timer during, and for 90 min after dosing the phyto.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I’ve been autodosing live phyto to my tank, in large part to boost pods for my mandarin. I’ve been doing it in the middle
of the night.

But it occurred to me that maybe pods cannot “see” phyto in the dark.
Anyone have thoughts on day vs night dosing of phyto for pods?

I’ve always done after lights out. But I only do it 30 days after I feed the tank pods, after that I don’t feed phyto anymore. Those biotches are on their own. Plus, I don’t have a mandarin.

 

[bradreef]

Lights out is to prevent predators from eating them. If you don't have any, just kill flow and filtration for 20-30 min.

 

[Reeferbadness]

I've had a mandarin for 5+ years and only added pods for the first year or so.... no phyto for the last 4 years either.... he's outlived many of the fish in my 200g tank and the pod population must be stable and doing well as he is def a healthy forager. Not sure how this plays into other people's tanks. I do have a very healthy refugium and lots of live rock for pods to stay out of site for many of the other fish - including a rhomboid wrasse

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Lights out is to prevent predators from eating them. If you don't have any, just kill flow and filtration for 20-30 min.

I’m confused.

Lights out when adding phyto?

Predators eating the pods that are trying to eat the phyto?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I've had a mandarin for 5+ years and only added pods for the first year or so.... no phyto for the last 4 years either.... he's outlived many of the fish in my 200g tank and the pod population must be stable and doing well as he is def a healthy forager. Not sure how this plays into other people's tanks. I do have a very healthy refugium and lots of live rock for pods to stay out of site for many of the other fish - including a rhomboid wrasse

Thanks. :)

 

[bradreef]

I’m confused.

Lights out when adding phyto?

Predators eating the pods that are trying to eat the phyto?

Light out when feeding pods. Light out for phyto because most coral naturally feeds at night and opens up feeders.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Light out when feeding pods. Light out for phyto because most coral naturally feeds at night and opens up feeders.

Ok, but if the goal is not corals but pods, do you know that pods can find phyto in the dark? How do they?

I am also feeding sponges and other nonphotosynthetic organisms.

 

[bradreef]

Ok, but if the goal is not corals but pods, do you know that pods can find phyto in the dark? How do they?

I am also feeding sponges and other nonphotosynthetic organisms.

Pods are out and active at night.

 

[BigAl07]

I always dose Phyto at night, lights off, and all pumps/filters off. Here's my routine:

* Sometime after the tank has been all dark for a min of 30min I will "drip" a few drops of Phyto into the tank to get their "attention". (their being coral etc). I have noticed a significant "feeding response" to most of my coral right after this "chumming session".
* About 5 min later I hit Feed Mode which stops all pumps etc and the tank goes still in about 3 min
* I then put 1/2 the bottle (32oz bottle usually) in one side of the tank and then 1/2 in the other side. Some nights it's Phyto Only but most nights it's a Phyto/Copepod combo bottle I've made up.
* After 35min the tank "auto-restarts" and everything goes back to normal.