Finally Seeing Copepods

Rcpilot

Reef enthusiast
I knew I had copepods because I bought some really nice cured rock from a local reefer a little while back. But, I hadn't seen any until recently. A few weeks ago, I saw a few in my refugium.

Today, the walls of my refugium are just covered in copepods. :mrgreen:

So, will they get blown out of the refugium and into the tank? I know most fish will eat them.

Do I want to stir the water in my refugium? Or slosh the cheato around to knock them loose and hopefully get a few of them into the overflow where they will end up in the tank?

Or, just let them be?
Will they eventually get into the overflow on the refugium and get "naturally" deposited into the tank over time?

Edit:
I got fresh coraline growth too. Spotted it on my skimmer plumbing and on one of my rocks. It's pinkish/purple in color and crusty like hard water stains that won't rub off.
 
The pods will eventually spill over into your main tank on their own. Make sure that you have any filter sponges or pads removed from your return pump. Those pads are designed to trap any large particles trying to pass through, and will trap any copepods headed up to your tank.
 
No sponges in the way. It's a HOB refugium. The powerhead pulls water from the tank and into the refugium. It's a simple overflow back into the tank. Nothing stopping those little copepods from entering the overflow and taking the slide to their death.

Thanks
 
congrats on having bugs in your tank! (to a non-reefer this would sound like an extrememly strange conversation, huh) if you are seeing them in youre fuge than you can bet your last dollar that they are in the tank too. it's the only way they could have gotten into the fuge, unless you bought some live pods and dumped them in.
 
Nope, I know they were hitching on some live rock I bought from a local reefer. So, you are right, they came from the tank. Thats the only way they could have got in there. I'm surprised they made it past the powerhead impellor. That must be sorta like a high-speed revolving door. :lol:
 
hehe. those little buggers are sneaky. heck, i thought some we on the kitchen table the other night. flipped on the lights, found out my daughter just left a cookie on the table, it was only piss ants!
 
nope, hang on fuge are awesome for pods, i got one, the best way to get a bunch is go to a buddy's house or local reefer and get some chaeto from his fuge and you will have tons more like copepods, isopods, amphipods, mini starfish, mini brittle starfish. I could seed a tank with lots, especially spaghetti worms, bristle worms, going to get some stomatella snails tonight from a buddies house they breed alot in tanks and are great to have.
 
my hang on fuge has tons of small feather dusters, i could grab out hundreds to seed another fuge with, good natural filter feeders, natural filters the best.
 
No Manderin fish for me. I've heard that 95% of them starve in captivity. I think you'd need a pretty large population of copepods to support an animal that won't eat anything other than copepods.
 
I've read that some can be trained to eat frozen food. I don't care for the Manderin fish enough to risk starving one to death. I'll just have to let them live in the ocean. :mrgreen:
 
I'm up late. Been staring at my tank for a couple hours. I've spotted a very healthy pod population in the tank. I knew I had them in the refugium. I'm sure they came from the live rocks and migrated into the refugium. But, I've just never seen them in the tank before. I had looked, but not REALLY got down and looked closely.

They are all over the place. I spotted one crawling around on a rock. It was actually in the path of my big giant snail. It jumped and ran out of the way of the snails mouth just in the nic of time. I dunno is snails eat pods, but this pod was runnin' like he was about to get eaten. :lol: It was that movement that made my eye catch sight of it. I was locked in on my big snail--just watching it and admiring the white eyes with the little pupils in the middle--and WHOA!! whats that? hehe! A pod!!

So, I started looking around the edges of the tank near the DSB. Gazillions of them. :mrgreen: Maybe this new refugium is moving the water so fast that it's washing pods out. I kinda suspected this, but I'm still seeing them in there. I did buy a less powereful powerhead to plug into the fuge. I plan to install that next week. That will slow the fuge down from 295GPH to 230GPH. I'd rather see it down around 100-150GPH. I don't know if changing the flow rate will bugger up the skimmer. I'll just have to see.

Really excited to see a nice pod population in the tank. Those things wouldn't be alive if my water parameters were way outta whack--right?

Will a 6-line wrasse eat pods?
 
Sixlines LOOOOOVE to eat pods.

And if they are migrating from your fuge to the main tank, that's a good thing! That way, there will always be a breeding population in the fuge providing a constant live food source to the main tank.
 
If you want to slow the flow rate from the tank to the fuge you could just put a ball-valve in the flow path and restrict it to whatever you want. This should not adversely affect the skimmer at all.
 
I agree with Joe.
The only effect I think it might have on the skimmer,is to allow it to work the water a little better.

And Yeah,six-lines and pods go together like ole Yote and venison tender loin.
 
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