[rayjay]

I never could keep the population of pods up in any of my seahorse tanks because the seahorses decimate the population so quickly. Rubble piles kept the numbers up more than anything else for me, but, I ended up with too many problems with trapped detritus so I scrapped that idea.
I don't even worry about the pods although I suspect some make it through the return from sump to tank, but rather I feed enriched adult brine shrimp usually once a week but sometimes more often, especially if I'm waiting for a shipment of frozen mysis to come in.
I too have found males generally appearing not to eat as much as females but with exceptions. I don't find my males or females to be fatter than the others.