Building a fuge for pod production.

[Jeremy Blaze]

I am going to be setting up a fuge on a tank. It is about 50 gallons and will gravity feed into the tank.

The goal of this fuge is strictly pod production.

After reading Calfos invert book, I am thinking of adding some crushed coral to the bottom, and making a rack that filter pads will hang from in the water, to give the pods a place to live.

Thoughts, suggestions, etc???

What would you do?

[perpetual98]

live rock rubble would be something else to think about. they also tend to like to live in macro algae. to really jump start pods they love to live in green water, which may or may not be good for your display tank. I'm thinking about putting a copepod breeding tank under my new 40 breeder. I'm just trying to figure out how to move water through it at a slow enough rate, like the area of a gallon per day or something like that. Just enough to keep some fresh water in the pod area, but not enough to dump massive amounts of green water into the display. UV could also help with that, but not on a gravity fed system, at least not as easy.

eric

[Jeremy Blaze]

Thanks. I plan to have cheato in another part of the system, so would like to avoid it in this fuge, for maintance purposes.

[Whoyah]

So the filter pads are in place of the chaeto?

[Jeremy Blaze]

Right.

I will have cheato elsewhere in the system, for its filtering, but would like to keep it out of this fuge.

In Calfos invert book, he talks about the filter pads as a media for the pods.

[Whoyah]

I have heard that pods really flurish when they are fed phytoplankton. I know my pods get really active in my fuge when I feed my homemade fish food.

[RHAPALA]

me showing a newbie side again ........what are pods ? and what are their purpose?

[Jeremy Blaze]

pods is slang for, copopods, amphipods, etc... Macro plankton if you will, bugs, natural food for many animals.

[Sweetpea]

They kinda look like silver flea-type things... look in the gaps between and under your rocks... you should see the little buggers crawling around. Sometimes you can even see them crawling out in the open during full light times! Here is a link: http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/crust/amphigal.html

[RHAPALA]

ok read the link and thanks :) but my new question is what eats them? corals? fish? should i have a tank just to grow then and every so offten dump a gal from one tank to the other? also my lfs sell aquapods in a bottle for about 23 bucks is it worth getting?

[Jeremy Blaze]

Aquapods are a joke. Your tank should have them in there if you have added any live rock. You don't have to have a seperate tank but it helps. Look up refugiums.

[RHAPALA]

thats just it i was thinking of doing a 30 gal sump/refug
still not sure on all the details tho