Can you "grow" your copepod colony in the tank without a refugium?

[crazyzeus1]

Can a tank grow a good population of copepods without a refugium if I purchase the copepods they sell & put them in the tank?
We have a dragonet & I don't want him to run out of food...but we also do not have a refugium. So I was wondering if I purchased the copepods once a month...or every so often...if they would reproduce in the tank & be sufficient food.
We have a 100gal reef tank with 130lb of live rock. Our dragonet is the only one with a copepod diet (other fish include 2 Green Chromis, & a Foxface in the future, & a Percula in the future). Cleaning crew (CBS, Peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 2 brittle stars, hermits, snails, 3 turbo snails, emerald crabs, 9 porcelain crabs).
What say you?

 

[tizzo]

Your 130 lbs of LR should sustain enough pods by itself. If you see no pods now, then buy and add some, but if you have them crawling around I doubt 1 fish will deplete them. I have 180 lbs of LR and my mandarin hasn't put a dent in the pod population, and he does not eat anything frozen. Oh and I do not have a fuge either, so IME you should be OK without needing to repopulate...

 

[crazyzeus1]

I do see lots of pods crawling around the glass...hard to tell on the rocks, but I did see little wormy-type things (I'm thinking small bristle worms, but not sure) crawling around.
Can you have an over-population of pods (being a negative thing?)

 

[tizzo]

It's hard to have "to many", their food source will deplete and regulate their numbers quickly. You will see spikes in the population often, but having to many will prolly never be a problem...

 

[crazyzeus1]

I bought 4 bottles of AuqaPods to replinish our pods since I can't readily see them crawling on the rocks, & I want to make sure our Dragonet has enough food.
As this cost me $100...someone please tell me I didn't just buy "snake oil" & this was worth it!!!
Anyone ever used AquaPods or other copepods like this?

 

[fishieness]

i have no idea what aquapods are..... But as long as your tank is mature then your mandarin will do fine. My CBS eats amphiopods, and my clown eats any he finds off of the glass. But i would thinkt hat 130 pounds of mature live rock would be fine. However, you can create basicaly an in tank refugium. A refugium just gives the pods a safe place to breed without preditors always eating them. You can take some live rock rubble and stack it on top of eachother. Just make it fine enough so taht your dragonette cannot get in there, but course enough so pods can get out and such (IE, not normal size peices, but not sand either). SOmething like around golf ball sized.