Wants lots of pods in my tank

soulsigma

Member
O.K. Thanks and what do I feed the pods to keep them alive and reproducing? and are they lost when doing water changes? new to the hobby and want to know.
 

culp

Active Member
Originally Posted by soulsigma
http:///forum/post/2977116
O.K. Thanks and what do I feed the pods to keep them alive and reproducing? and are they lost when doing water changes? new to the hobby and want to know.
no need to feed them as they do a great job feeding themselves on detritus (non-living particulate organic material. It typically includes the bodies or fragments of dead organisms as well as fecal material.)
they hide in the sand & in the live rock. and they reproduce on their own as long as you don't have a fish that eats them faster than they reproduce.
you can lose some of them as you are doing your water change but they keep reproducing so they will make up for what is lost.
if you have a six line wrasse or just about any other wrasse for that matter or a mandarin they will eat them too fast and will quickly eat just about every copepods so you will have to keep buying copepods every other week or so.
 

soulsigma

Member
OK I just placed an order at SWF and I also ordered some Phyto-Feast LIVE to feed them in hopes of building them up. This will be my second bag of pods as I am trying to build them up so that I can add a mandarin as I all ready have a six line wrasse which eats worms, shrimp, flak and pellets, and of course ffrozen foods he not a picky eater

Is it wise to have the mandarin and sixline in the same tank? I ALSO WILL BE ADDING A LAWNMORE BLENNY WHATS YOUR INPUT ON THAT?
 

flower

Well-Known Member
A mandarin can only be kept in a very well established tank.
Also I think you need a refugium to be able to keep them alive and fed enough copepods. Otherwise they deplete their food source and die of hunger in about two months.
 

oceansidefish

Active Member
Originally Posted by soulsigma
http:///forum/post/2977420
OK I just placed an order at SWF and I also ordered some Phyto-Feast LIVE to feed them in hopes of building them up. This will be my second bag of pods as I am trying to build them up so that I can add a mandarin as I all ready have a six line wrasse which eats worms, shrimp, flak and pellets, and of course ffrozen foods he not a picky eater

Is it wise to have the mandarin and sixline in the same tank? I ALSO WILL BE ADDING A LAWNMORE BLENNY WHATS YOUR INPUT ON THAT?
The sixline and the Mandarin would be competing for the same food source. Unless your tank is over a year old I would not even consider adding a mandarin without a fuge.
 

lauremf2002

Member
also, be sure that you are buying copepods that will seed (reproduce in) your tank. If you have to refrigerate the bottle or bag they came in then they WILL NOT reproduce or live for that matter in your tank. You can use these to supplement your fish's diet but not to seed your tank. They are a cold water pod such as "tigger" pods The one's you want are often called "reef" pods. I think those will seed a warm water tank
 

lauremf2002

Member
PS Lawnmower's, madarins and sixlines all eat pods. I personally would not put all three in a 75g tank even with a refugium. Unless you want to dump a bag of pods in there a week, which will get expensive. But its your money, not mine
 

andrewskb

New Member
I have a mandrin, lawnmower and 6line in my tank and have no problem. They are all fat and healthy. Of course my tank has been up for 2 years though. Amphipods and copepods are plenty with no refugium.
 

ryancw01

Member
The problem is that sixlines are so fast and mandarins are so slow that the sixline will get most of the food. I would think that 75g would be too small to house both, but it just depends on how much food your mandarin is able to grab when you feed the tank also.
 

cranberry

Active Member
Try to train the mandarin to frozen while in QT.
Originally Posted by lauremf2002
http:///forum/post/2978018
also, be sure that you are buying copepods that will seed (reproduce in) your tank. If you have to refrigerate the bottle or bag they came in then they WILL NOT reproduce or live for that matter in your tank. You can use these to supplement your fish's diet but not to seed your tank. They are a cold water pod such as "tigger" pods The one's you want are often called "reef" pods. I think those will seed a warm water tank
lauremf2002 is correct. I sell both Tigriopus (the coldwater larger ones) and Tisbe's (the warm water smaller ones) and Tisbe's are the ones you want. They are both very good... just one is meant for target feeding and one is meant more for seeding, like was already stated.
 

hlcroghan

Active Member
Hmmm, I have the coldwater species in my tank and they are reproducing like crazy. In fact they are all over the glass and sand. My false percula eats them all the time. I have my temp set at 79....do you think they are adapting?
 

cranberry

Active Member
They will burn themselves out in time. At higher temps more and more males are produced until you are left with a culture that is primarily all males.....
 

soulsigma

Member
The pods that I am using to seed my tank are the ones I purchase from SWF and they are label reefpods, I order a bag every two weeks and today 03/05/09, I just received my second shipment. I float the bag for 30 min. then I turn out the tank lights and the room lights and pour them into my 75g tank. The lights remain out for 3.3hrs while I am aclimating my other purchases. This gives the pods a chans to get into the sand and LR without being eaten because durring the lights out periond my six line always goes into hiding and will not come out untill the tank lights are on. To Cranberry do you think I can purchase some Tisbe's from you?
 

vishnuborg

Member
At one point I owned an empty tank. While my tank was empty, a single amphipod that had recently arrived on a piece of rock rubble decided to take the opportunity to reproduce. So I let the tank be for two months without so much as scraping the glass of algae, and when I did it was crawling with literally hundreds of them! But then I got a fish and now I only see a couple now and then. But still the rockwork is teeming with them. I hope you learn something from this.
 
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