copepods

[linjam]

what all do copepods eat? how fast do they reproduce? ect... any info on this would be helpful

[apedroza]

They eat algae and detritus and anything else they can find. They can reproduce pretty quickly if nothing is preying on them.

[erikharrison]

detritus... not quick enough, lol. What kind of fish are you trying to keep?

[MissT]

They eat phytoplankton and other small particles in the water column, as well as detritus on your rocks. Their rate of reproduction will vary greatly on your fish load becaus even one little goby or wrasse in a small enough system can desimate a pod population pretty quickly if the tank hasn't had time to mature enough.

Here's some more info for anyone interested:
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/pestscopepods/a/aa061200.htm

[MissT]

Guess I was too slow LOL

[linjam]

in a seperate tank i want to mass produce copepods then take out the algae and then keep mandarins and seahorses?

[MissT]

put in a good size sand bed, some liverock rubble and lots of chaeto, and you can use it like a "remote" refugium, and just grab some chaeto every few days and shake it off in your tank or place some in somewhere high flow for a little while.

[linjam]

I saw this on www.melevsreef.com (http://www.melevsreef.com) will this help produce copepods ------>Cycling the tank. Unlike a freshwater tank, it takes time for a saltwater tank to be ready for a new fish or other creature. Once your tank has been set up, you’ve added your sand, filled it with saltwater, turned on the heater, started the filters, now you can add your live rock. What your tank needs is bacteria, and you need to breed it before your new pets are added. A very easy way to do this is to buy one or two uncooked cocktail shrimp from the deli at the supermarket. Just throw them in the tank and let them rot. As they do, bacteria will grow as a result. Ammonia levels will rise in the tank over the period of a week or 10 days, then it will suddenly drop (you’ll observe this with your Ammonia test kit), and Nitrites will rise quickly over a period of another few days. Finally, the Nitrites will drop off completely (reading 0 with your Nitrites test), and Nitrates will begin to register on your Nitrates test kit. As soon as your Ammonia and Nitrites tests both read 0 on the matching test kits, it is safe to add the new fish.

[MissT]

it's a description of cycling a tank, but not really relative... the pods will be on/in the rock whether it's cured or not. but throwing in raw shrimp is not necessary. If the rock is cured, that will just set it back in the cycle (sort of like overfeeding when cycling a freshwater tank since we were using that example)

[linjam]

If i run a remote refugium then will i need a power head to move water.

[MissT]

I'd probably go with a little hang on filter that's filled with even more liverock rubble.

[linjam]

If i run a remote refugium then will i need a power head to move water.

[Hydramatic]

If i run a remote refugium then will i need a power head to move water.

I kinda did this. I acquired an empty Aquaclear 500/110 shell with the motor and gray basket(but with no media, etc) and I ran a power head inside the tank to provide flow.

I took the AC, cut the strainer piece off, and, using a reverse-flow kit that came with my Penguin 550 powerhead, pumped the water from inside the tank into the filter. To do this you need to remove the original impeller from the AquaClear so the water can flow into the filter. Add chaeto, live rock, or whatever you want(lighting optional for non-algae setups) and voila! Instant mini-refugium. The only thing that really sucks about this setup is that you'll have to put in some baffles of some sort if you want to run mud or fine substrate. The small water capacity is also a perceived weakness, but on a smaller tank, it isn't a big deal. I originally ran Chaeto, but after a self-engineered cyanobacteria infestation(which, I admit I was curious in seeing just HOW good cyano was at reducing nitrates. I had heard it was very potent at the task, which proved true....I was tired of how it looked though. It isn't exactly pleasing to have a box of lime-green and dark red slime hanging on the back of a tank:bigsmile:...) I just switched it over to a single layer of sponge and my heater.

Lucky me, I've got sponge and copepods growing in the filter now!