copepod hatchery project pics

[peacepleasure]

For those that were interested in how I was doing my pod farm, here ya go.

I first ordered some Tisbe pods, which are for warm water reefs. I used a 10gal tank that I had sitting around. Add a filter for circulation ONLY. Do not add pads or anything in the filter. Add a heater.

I filled the 10g tank with water from my DT water change. Tisbe pods thrive in dirty water....so the dirtier the better.

For the pod condos I used gutter guard from Lowes, zip strips and LR rubble. I acclimated the pods when they came in, dumped it into the farm tank and there ya go. I continue to feed the tank once a day or every other day with flake food. Tisbe pods reproduce quickly so in about a week to 9 days you should see a pod explosion. I will then take one pod condo and put it into my DT and switch out every few days to once a week.

Change water once a month and top off with rodi water.

Hope this helps.

[915MANG]

Thats pretty cool

[peacepleasure]

Thanks. This is my first farm so I will post back in a few weeks to give my results of how it's going. This is a great way to keep pods to feed pod eating fish..mandarin... pipefish. This keeps the numbers abundant without a fear of the pod eating fish wiping out the DT population.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by peacepleasure

Thanks. This is my first farm so I will post back in a few weeks to give my results of how it's going. This is a great way to keep pods to feed pod eating fish..mandarin... pipefish. This keeps the numbers abundant without a fear of the pod eating fish wiping out the DT population.

Great job, I was reading a forum with that same design too. I was thinking about making me some of those. Keep up with this and post some pics when they are covered with pods!

[peacepleasure]

Thanks Chaka and will do and yeah, I stole the idea from the web. Looked easy and popular so I am hoping for success.

[Canelo]

Thanks for the info

[pnavarro170]

what about using the loofas things.

[peacepleasure]

Originally Posted by pnavarro170

what about using the loofas things.

Hmm, never thought of that but sounds like something like that would work. Hell, may work better than the homemade condos..lol

[pnavarro170]

ive seen people use them for that. they even sell some premade stuff for pods on ebay.

[Richiefile]

Any updates? Im also about to attempt a similar project?

[Wally.B]

Thanks for the tip for the Pod Farm. Like idea to add some rock/cling surface.

Just starting my Pod farm. Goal is to breed pods to feed my new Mandarin.

Picked up a bottle of Live Tigger Pods.

Reef Nutrition product. They have good instructions

http://reefnutrition.com/tigger_pods.php#tab_use

My setup will be simple. Plastic bottle, air stone, bit of rock..etc

Will post my results soon.

[wowkingjames]

Thanks for info.

[Wally.B]

Folks,

** FINALLY GOT success to breed CopePods ** Using the Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods.

After 2 failures I almost gave up.

(Maybe this should have been easy, but for me.... a many week journey, since I never did breeding before).

Supplier gave me a free expired bottle of Reef Nutrition Tigger Coped to give it one more try.

3rd attempt worked!!! Will be feeding my Mandarin Live food soon

See PIC summary of my 3 attempts.

TAKE1. I tried as directed on bottle, to use a bottle with airstone approach. I added some things to bottle which I thought would be good breeding surfaces. I think this would have worked, just like in attempt 3, but I was using old food, and I think I fouled the water, even though I was making small water changes every few days.

TAKE2. After 1st failure, which at the time I didn't know was the food. Got fancy and made a mini refugium. 2 Possible reasons for failure. First is obvious, they escaped. 2nd guess is that in order to breed, the container should be isolated to avoid contamination. I may be wrong.

TAKE 3. Went simple this time. 10 Gal aquarium. AirStone, and heater. No mention of heater needed on instructions, but using a heater to match my aquarium temp, so when I feed to my mandarin the pods don't shock and live long enough to be hunting material for madarim. This worked, and I'm only on day 14 of the recommended breeding cycle. Instruction say there will be an population explosion around day 21. Population explosion is starting. Few days ago, I saw maybe a hundred pods. Now many hundreds.

Stay tuned. Will post day 21 in a week.

[TimGentry]

Cool stuff!