Ratios of Cleaners to Food to Copepods to Mandarin Goby

cbusexaminer

cbusexaminer

New Member
Alrighty, I've tried to get this going twice now and can't manage to keep my copepods alive long enough to reproduce. It's probably not so much a bad ratio of pods to Mandarin but moreso nitrate spikes. What ive used both times are Tigger Pods but they seem really fragile to any kind of spike. It's just a crazy mess.
My new plan is to use my 14 gallon Biocube to amass a bunch of 'pods to transfer into my main tank and then attempt my 3rd goby.
Sound like a decent plan?
(also: http://www.examiner.com/x-52940-Columbus-Fish-Examiner
I'm looking for some readers/subscribers to help me out here as well)
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by cbusexaminer
http:///forum/post/3278177
Alrighty, I've tried to get this going twice now and can't manage to keep my copepods alive long enough to reproduce. It's probably not so much a bad ratio of pods to Mandarin but moreso nitrate spikes. What ive used both times are Tigger Pods but they seem really fragile to any kind of spike. It's just a crazy mess.
My new plan is to use my 14 gallon Biocube to amass a bunch of 'pods to transfer into my main tank and then attempt my 3rd goby.
Sound like a decent plan?
(also: http://www.examiner.com/x-52940-Columbus-Fish-Examiner
I'm looking for some readers/subscribers to help me out here as well)

Welcome to the site!
That is what they call a refugium, the difference is that a refugium has the water running from one tank to the other so you don't have to transfer the good critters manually. The refugium will stabilize the nitrates. Also your tank should be more stable and maybe you should have waited for the Mandarin until it was. Hindsight is always 20/20
Most people would wait a few months so the pods have time to grow and populate before adding a pod eater. I hung a basket inside the back of my tank with macroalgae in it and seeded the basket with pods. I can't have a regular refugium because of space.
 
gill again68

gill again68

Active Member
+1
I use a flashlight at night to check population. Very hard, for me that is, to see those bugs but with the light I get to see it all. How long has the tank been up? How long you had the Mandarin?
 
xcali1985

xcali1985

Active Member
Been seeding my tank for a few months now, still going to wait possibly another month or two for one also.
 
R

rotifer

Guest
Tigger-Pods are a species of copepod that live in tide pools (not the open ocean) where there are no predators so they don't have the instincts to hide in the rocks when fish come by. Since they don't hide they get eaten pretty quickly in display tanks. We recommend they be cultured in a sump or refugium where there are no predators. They can also be easily cultured in a separate system like a 9x13 cake pan.
The population of copepods in a reef system is often food limited by the amount of natural microalgae that the reef system produces each day. If you supplement with microalgae you increase the amount of available food, and hence the population that can be supported. When additional pods are added the amount of food required immediately goes up, especially when feeding very large copepods like Tigger-Pods. Unfortunately many people don't add additional microalgae so both the Tigger-Pods and the existing copepod population end up with a food shortage and quickly starve.
 
clown-lover

clown-lover

Member
So pods eat microalgae...
What if the microalgae is in the fuge area of the tank...what happens to the pods that go into the DT? Do they eventually die because there is no algae in the DT?
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
We didn't have much success at getting our Tigriopus califoricus to reproduce at warmer temps. I'm not gonna debate the species requirements etc etc, but when we put a chiller on on cultures, our pod population took off. When we removed the chiller, the numbers dropped again. Winter, numbers go up. Summer numbers go down. That has been our experience and the experience we pass along to our customers.
We have better success at culturing Tisbe and Psudocyclops species in our warm water tanks. So, we recommend the Tigriopus for direct feeding and the Tisbe and the Pseudocylops for in-tank culturing. We culture all three and have no reason to say one is better than the other... we just have found our clients aren't as happy with the Tiggers when trying to get a culture going.
There's lots of algae in our tanks for pods to eat and live. That film algae you'll see on the glass after a few days of not cleaning... that's one of their favourite foods. If you add a nice nutritious phyto to your tank, their will be even more food for them to eat and their populations will climb accordingly.
But we DO love when you buy the Tigriopus (after we give our warnings to be sure you know what to expect and that you won't come back to beat us up when disappointed), because you keep coming back to buy more and more and more, due to the difficulties in keeping the numbers up using "in-tank" culturing methods.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Clown-Lover
http:///forum/post/3278487
So pods eat microalgae...
What if the microalgae is in the fuge area of the tank...what happens to the pods that go into the DT? Do they eventually die because there is no algae in the DT?

A tank with no algae????
Cranberry: SWF sells REEF pods, what are they? I never knew there were different copepods
Very interesting.
 
clown-lover

clown-lover

Member
Oh I've got three different types of algae in my tank right now that I don't want in there! But I wasn't sure if the pods eat that or not...that's what I meant...sry
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Clown-Lover
http:///forum/post/3278602
Oh I've got three different types of algae in my tank right now that I don't want in there! But I wasn't sure if the pods eat that or not...that's what I meant...sry

I can guess hair algae, what other types?
 
R

rotifer

Guest
Pods actually feed on single celled microalgae, not chain forming or macroalgae like hair algae.
Success with culturing Tigriopus californicus in various temperatures depends on where your original source comes from. TC range from Canada to Honduras. If your broodstock comes from a cold water area, they are not going to grow as well in warmer waters. Tigger-Pods are a trademarked brand name of TC that are part of the Reef Nutrition product line. Our broodstock come from a very warm water area and don't grow well below 70 F. The TC in Mexico and Honduras probably won't grow well below 75 F.
Apparently Cranberry's TC broodstock come from an area with colder water than our Tigger-Pods because they like colder water. But if you have genuine Tigger-Pods from Reef Nutrition, they are going to grow well in the range of typical reef systems.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Our broodstock came from you...... O.O
Again, I'm not talking smack about anyone's pods. I'm just sharing our own experiences and what has made our customers happy. I love Tigriopus. They are a GREAT pod. We just have not found great success in keeping these in reef tanks as a self sustaining in-tank culture.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3278578

Cranberry: SWF sells REEF pods, what are they? I never knew there were different copepods
Very interesting.
I'm going to guess ReefPods are Tisbe sp, but they seem to sell multiple different pods.
Their product OceanPods contain a mixture of 3 species.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
Ive had really good luck with a jar of DT's pods. i poured them in abck when I had jsut a lionfish in teh tank, so he wasnt going to eat them. let them grow for about 5 months then sold the lion and started my reef. my mandarin is unbelieveably fat and I still ahve little white things crawling on everything.
I think the DT's pods might be smaller than most pods though. i see pods at my LFS and they are ALOT bigger.
Ive had such good luck that I'm not worried to add a sixline now too. he's in QT for another 7 days and in he goes.
I do have a fuge to help reproduction. I also have a turf scrubber which is suppose to support loads of pods allthough I havnt seen these little sand speck pods in my system that others have.
I just upgraded my tank froma 90 to a 120 so when I changed over my tank I assumed i would lose alot of my population in the move. But within a few days i had loads of little pods all over the glass again.
I don't know much of anything wehn it comes to the species but the DT's worked for me.
 
rickyh24

rickyh24

Member
Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3278184
I hung a basket inside the back of my tank with macroalgae in it and seeded the basket with pods. I can't have a regular refugium because of space.
Could I possibly get some more info on this. I'm in the process of setting up a 70 reef and this sounds like a route I may want to take. Thanks :)
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
its called a hang on the back refugium, HOB refugium should get you some results if googled
 
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