Reef By Steele
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When I first got into the hobby in the 80’s information was harder to gather. No internet, a few really good books but not at the local library, wait for the two monthly magazines I subscribed to, and the advice from the local fish stores (which you could get three different answers from three different stores) OK so not everything changed.
But one thing that has changed is adding pods to your tank. I remember finding Amphipods in my sump back in the 80's and thinking I had some terrible parasite or something. It looked like a flea, and I had no idea if it was good or bad. Finally I found the answer and decided they were way cool.
A small store in Lincoln Nebraska had a green mandarin just floating above the rocks and I just had to have one. I was told my tank would need copious amounts of live rock and be about a year old. I waited it out and still I was unable to keep one alive.
Today you can add a mandarin to your aquarium as soon as your tank has cycled, at least I did. I did a fish in cycle over a month, and “Rainbow Wish” was the 4th or 5th fish added. But this time I knew about Copepods, and added a large order to seed the tank and periodically added more and 2 years later he is gorgeous and beautiful.
And there were other hidden benefits as well. I started the Red Sea XL 525 and a 350 at the same time and amazingly I didn’t suffer from the “Ugly Phase” in either tank, I had split the Pods between both tanks. At the time I thought I must just be lucky as I remembered my first saltwater tanks and was prepared for the worst.
Yet when I started my third tank, an XXL750, I planned this tank to be for larger predators so I did not add pods as I knew I wouldn’t have any of the usual pod hunters in the tank. And a year or so later I upgraded the XL525 to an S1000 moving everything from the XL525 except the sand bed. Again I avoided the ugly phase in the S1000, but GHA took over the XL525 that I had reloaded with ”wet” rock from my LFS and I was in an ongoing battle with turf algae in the XXL750, man oh man what did I do wrong this time? I was using the same salts and maintenance routine, everything was the same, yet the outcome was different. It wasn’t until much later that I remembered that I had stocked both of the first two tanks with Amphipods and a blend of copepods. I continued to fight both of those tanks until we were at the LFS and my wife @Ocean_Queenie fell in love with a target Mandarin as one of its targets was shape like a paisley, which is what she promptly named it, at which time I ordered another round of pods (yes my loving wife would say quite regularly “Are there enough pods for paisley?, to which I would respond, “I don’t know, I will get some on order”. And whether it was just the passage of time or the addition of pods, the struggle in the XL525 subsided, even though I was still learning and honestly doing a terrible job of controlling my nutrients, I no longer had a GHA problem, yet the turf algae war continued in the XXL750. I really blamed this on the fact that I bought pre used dry rock (as I did with the original XL525 setup as the LFS had gotten a lot of Tonga rock in that had been in someone’s garage for years) but this rock was not ocean rock and had been used in a freshwater system. You can find all my challenges under my personal threads as @HankstankXXL750. Fast forward to April of this year when I got on the wrasse lovers thread and decided to purchase Anampses meleagrides, Macropharyngodon meleagris, and Macropharyngodon bipartitus and knew then I would need a lot more pods, so I reached out to a fellow reefer here on R2R and he helped me to get started culturing my own and I started doing research. This is when I learned about the “curing” benefits of PODS both copepods and amphipods. These benefits include nutrient export by consuming bacteria, detritus and uneaten food and converting it to protein and fatty acids for our fish. Algae control as pods are so small they can get into the tiniest of crevices and clean the algae down to its roots. Copepods aid in the husbandry of certain aquarium inhabitants like our beloved Rainbow Wish and Paisley and we can’t ignore HUSKER our Ruby Red Dragonet (Can’t live in the Cornhusker state and have a red and yellow fish and not name it after your team lol) plus pipefish, seahorses, anthias, and food for many different captive bred fry. Plus as an added bonus almost if not all of your fish in your aquarium as they munch on these protein and fatty acid enriched treats.
So now I have fat and healthy Pod hunters, mostly algae free tanks (fighting something in the S1000 since I zeroed NO3 and PO4, and yes I have a microscope, but with my culturing, I haven’t taken the time to look) and am achieving better nutrient values without relying on NO-Pox and Lanthanum chloride. And it’s fun to watch them on the glass.
Please share your thoughts and experiences both successes and failures as we continue this frustrating and rewarding hobby that I can now not live without. Happy and Joyous Reefing one and all.
But one thing that has changed is adding pods to your tank. I remember finding Amphipods in my sump back in the 80's and thinking I had some terrible parasite or something. It looked like a flea, and I had no idea if it was good or bad. Finally I found the answer and decided they were way cool.
A small store in Lincoln Nebraska had a green mandarin just floating above the rocks and I just had to have one. I was told my tank would need copious amounts of live rock and be about a year old. I waited it out and still I was unable to keep one alive.
Today you can add a mandarin to your aquarium as soon as your tank has cycled, at least I did. I did a fish in cycle over a month, and “Rainbow Wish” was the 4th or 5th fish added. But this time I knew about Copepods, and added a large order to seed the tank and periodically added more and 2 years later he is gorgeous and beautiful.
And there were other hidden benefits as well. I started the Red Sea XL 525 and a 350 at the same time and amazingly I didn’t suffer from the “Ugly Phase” in either tank, I had split the Pods between both tanks. At the time I thought I must just be lucky as I remembered my first saltwater tanks and was prepared for the worst.
Yet when I started my third tank, an XXL750, I planned this tank to be for larger predators so I did not add pods as I knew I wouldn’t have any of the usual pod hunters in the tank. And a year or so later I upgraded the XL525 to an S1000 moving everything from the XL525 except the sand bed. Again I avoided the ugly phase in the S1000, but GHA took over the XL525 that I had reloaded with ”wet” rock from my LFS and I was in an ongoing battle with turf algae in the XXL750, man oh man what did I do wrong this time? I was using the same salts and maintenance routine, everything was the same, yet the outcome was different. It wasn’t until much later that I remembered that I had stocked both of the first two tanks with Amphipods and a blend of copepods. I continued to fight both of those tanks until we were at the LFS and my wife @Ocean_Queenie fell in love with a target Mandarin as one of its targets was shape like a paisley, which is what she promptly named it, at which time I ordered another round of pods (yes my loving wife would say quite regularly “Are there enough pods for paisley?, to which I would respond, “I don’t know, I will get some on order”. And whether it was just the passage of time or the addition of pods, the struggle in the XL525 subsided, even though I was still learning and honestly doing a terrible job of controlling my nutrients, I no longer had a GHA problem, yet the turf algae war continued in the XXL750. I really blamed this on the fact that I bought pre used dry rock (as I did with the original XL525 setup as the LFS had gotten a lot of Tonga rock in that had been in someone’s garage for years) but this rock was not ocean rock and had been used in a freshwater system. You can find all my challenges under my personal threads as @HankstankXXL750. Fast forward to April of this year when I got on the wrasse lovers thread and decided to purchase Anampses meleagrides, Macropharyngodon meleagris, and Macropharyngodon bipartitus and knew then I would need a lot more pods, so I reached out to a fellow reefer here on R2R and he helped me to get started culturing my own and I started doing research. This is when I learned about the “curing” benefits of PODS both copepods and amphipods. These benefits include nutrient export by consuming bacteria, detritus and uneaten food and converting it to protein and fatty acids for our fish. Algae control as pods are so small they can get into the tiniest of crevices and clean the algae down to its roots. Copepods aid in the husbandry of certain aquarium inhabitants like our beloved Rainbow Wish and Paisley and we can’t ignore HUSKER our Ruby Red Dragonet (Can’t live in the Cornhusker state and have a red and yellow fish and not name it after your team lol) plus pipefish, seahorses, anthias, and food for many different captive bred fry. Plus as an added bonus almost if not all of your fish in your aquarium as they munch on these protein and fatty acid enriched treats.
So now I have fat and healthy Pod hunters, mostly algae free tanks (fighting something in the S1000 since I zeroed NO3 and PO4, and yes I have a microscope, but with my culturing, I haven’t taken the time to look) and am achieving better nutrient values without relying on NO-Pox and Lanthanum chloride. And it’s fun to watch them on the glass.
Please share your thoughts and experiences both successes and failures as we continue this frustrating and rewarding hobby that I can now not live without. Happy and Joyous Reefing one and all.
