live copepods

[chadman]

we purchased a blue mandarin yesturday and want to add some copepods just in case there isnt' enough to keep this guy happy...has anyone had any experiences with buying them from the internet? i saw on this site they are like 12 dollars for 200 and the drs site they are like 25 dollars for i think it was four oz...can't remember for sure...anyone have any suggestions on where to purchase them? also how many of them should i get for a 55g tank...how many can a big mandarin take out in a short time? i would like to have them mulitiply and thrive in my tank so that they can be a solid food source for all my fishies....

 

[vicegrip]

Do you have a "fuge". Pods live in cheato. Imo a 55 gal. tank may be to small for mandarin they will eat all the pods in a few days. It may help to have 100 plus lbs. of live rock otherwise you must feed live pods every day.

 

[chadman]

we do have around 100 pounds of live rock in the tank....i think he should be okay...we don't have chaeto but how about other algaes such as halimeda which we do have...will they grow in there? i was under the impression that copepods live in live sand and on live rock

 

[chadman]

you think a mandarin would eat 200-400 pods in a day or two?!?!?!

 

[nygel]

check your lfs's for tiger pods, they're pretty good, and the ones around me have them. Add some cheato and rock rubble to some part of the tank and make it not very accessable to the mandarin, it'll work.

 

[chadman]

does chaeto need a lot of light to survive or could i tuck it in a back corner? we purchased some halimeda yesturday....do pods need chaeto or can they survive living in other plants?

 

[nygel]

plants in general work, I have a bunch of kelp too, and i dont think they need light... and it grows decently fast I believe.

 

[chadman]

we don't have a sump or fuge only display tank...

 

[chadman]

so you think the halimeda could work then?

 

[nygel]

Yeah, i just have a display tank (29g) and it works great for me... and yeah, it could work.

 

[chadman]

sweet! i am going to order maybe like 400 copepods from this site and hope they get in there and --- it up and make a lot of babies and make my mandarin a happy camper...haha

 

[vicegrip]

Wal-mart also has a clear soap dish with suction cup. It's about 5" high with square holes on the bottom and sides.
You can put your macro algae in it. I've heard it works great.

 

[chadman]

o yeah good thinking...maybe i will do that we are still waiting to have or ro unit hooked up so we are going to wal mart anyways to buy some distilled water....thanks

 

[05xrunner]

Yes a soapdish from walmart with cheato in it works great...I got 2 of them in my tank now.
I had a thread going about this a few weeks ago.

 

[vicegrip]

Originally Posted by 05xrunner
Yes a soapdish from walmart with cheato in it works great...I got 2 of them in my tank now.
I had a thread going about this a few weeks ago.

Yep that's where I saw it, great idea.

I went and bought the shallow one for frags, works great.

 

[chadman]

okay i am trying to order the copepods and the chaeto to start the hang on rufuge type thing you spoke of...the only problem is the only place i can find the copepods online is on this site but they don't have the chaeto and you must spend like 75 bucks or somethign minimal on this site....on the drs live site they have teh chaeto but are out of stock with the copepods...are there other plants which i could stuff into the little hang on thing which would house the copepods jsut as well?

 

[vicegrip]

I buy cheato from my LFS for $5 for a fish bag full and that has a ton of pods living in it plus snails and mini stars.

 

[chadman]

yeah...i don't have a lfs which sells chaeto....my one lfs sells some algaes are there others which will host copepods?

 

[vicegrip]

yeah they all should be full of pods. pods hide in all algaes,plants and LR rubble.

 

[vicegrip]

Originally Posted by vicegrip
yeah they all should be full of pods. pods hide in all algaes,plants and LR rubble.
Just ask your lfs what kind of lighting and water flow that type of algae needs.