YAY!
Another Pod question
Does anyone feed their pods? When I look into my fuge sometimes there are pods all over. Other times hard pressed to find one. Is this normal/possible life cycle?
In a fuge, on a well established tank, they are being fed just fine. They are detritus recyclers and will eat just about anything they can get. If you have an off-line culture, cut off from the main display etc. You may want to feed. I use pulverized flake food and JUST A PINCH. IF you overfeed the cultures, they could crash too.
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Here's an image of a gammarus amphipod (actually, this is just a molt)
They are probably the largest "bug" or "pod" you see in your system. They, and mysid shrimp (opposum shrimp) are kind of big. You see them with the naked eye. They tend to stay in rock, sand and macro.
Here is a munnid isopod. They are probably the second largest you will see in your system. They rasp algae on glass, rock, and scuttle along macro too. They don't spend much time in the sand.
The smallest of the bugs that you'd probably see are the true calaniod copepods. They are easy to miss if you don't have good sight. They are on glass (look in corners of the tank with a flashlight) rock, macro etc. If they are on the glass, scooting, it's a copepod. If they are in a "swarm" or "School" spinning in the water column together, they are probably mysid hatchlings. I don't have a picture of a copepod in my system, so I took this one from a wikki.
Dave
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clear/white colored, usually in packs of 4+, about 2-3mm in size?? This is what i'm seeing, anyway.
you have too just look a little harder .. there verry fast movers use a maganfine glass too look at the rock you will be amazed i an on mine
:: hummer :nemo
I forgot how small pods can be. I am used to seeing things like mysis running around the tank, but on my new 40B the sump/refuge area looks like it's SNOWING with all the pods in there and they're so tiny that you think that they're just suspended detrius particles until you really get your nose in there and notice that they're swimming.
120G Reef and 40B reef at work, 120G tank dry and dirty in the garage.