Copepod encouragement in tank with minimal room

[Tired]

I have a 4.5gal tank that I'd like to encourage copepods in. The display is about 12" by 10", but I don't have anywhere among my rockwork to hide things like a pod condo. There are three filter compartments in the back, but the two that don't contain the pump have heaters in them- I keep my room at 68 degrees, and apparently, at the very small heater size that fits in the back compartments, I need 2 to keep things warm enough. 

 

So, how do I encourage copepod growth in a tank with minimal to no space other than the display? I already have some macros, and am working on getting more going. I was thinking a chaeto patch would be nice. Maybe sea lettuce? 

 

I have amphipods and would prefer not to have more, so anything that encourages only copepods would be ideal, but I think most pod encouragement methods work on both kinds. 

 

Are there any tiny little hang-on fuges that don't make any noise? I'm open to additional space, but would prefer not to have another plug-in thing, there's enough cables here already. 

[Derekd]

I have a copepod/amphipod breeding hotel in the first/middle chamber of my Fluval 13.5 that is essentially a 4 inch sand bed with a bunch of spaghetti worms and nassarius snails in 1 and a bunch of bio brick I crumbled up using a hammer with a bunch of crumbled live rock on top in chamber 2. It its piled about 3 inches above the outlet to the next chamber acting as mechanical filtration forcing all the water through it catching detritus and providing food.

 

The Fluval tank has a small hole that connects the display and chamber 2 (meant to even the water level if you forget to top off), most people close it but i left it open to act as a hotel door allowing them to travel to/from the display. My clown likes to hang out by it and hunt.

 

You could swap the two heaters out for an external in-line heater used with canisters and an external pump? Technically not adding any more plugs, more switching them but would give you room in the chambers. Or you could use a canister as a breeding area? if you split your return pump to run the canister, it'd mince up any amphis that would try to enter the canister but the copepods would be small enough to live in it and leave.

 

I also bought a bunch of empty hermit crab shells and littered them across the bottom of my tank along with very large shells as decorative items. These create mini hotels along the tanks floor. Again amphipods will get into these as well but they will help the copepods have hiding spaces. I have Chaeto/Grac/Ulva (sea lettuce) in my second chamber on top of the crumbed brick/rock as well and you can see them on the surface area of the ulva.

Its going to be hard to keep an area of copepods without the amphipods getting in there, as the baby amphis are about the size of some adult copepods and they are being hunted by the amphis.

 

If you aren't seeing them on the glass any more, they are still there they have just gone into hiding into the sand/crevices. I see them crawling across the shells i have on the floor of my tank all the time, but not too often on the glass now. I'd try dosing some phyto/live micro algae solutions to your tank to promote specifically their population and see if you can create a bloom, then you'd just need to figure out the maint dose to keep the pop up.

The best route would be to breed them in a separate container and dose them to the tank. Its not too hard or expensive to do, you could even begin to grow the phyto plankton and never have to buy pods/phyto again, using something as simple as a bottle with an air tube with a cheap light.

 

If you're doing this because you're interested in a mandarin, the tanks a bit small, but hey as long as he has food he will scoot around it just fine. But they will eat both, I've observed it in all of my tanks. I've also observed one eating tiny baby Astrea stars.

[Clown79]

The purpose of the pod condo is to he placed in a dark area where they can reproduce safely with no predators.

I made on out of craft mesh with some rock rubble which sits at the bottom of my second chamber.

 

You could essentially place one in the display 

[Tired]

...no, no I am not trying to keep a 4-inch fish that eats hundreds of pods a day in a tank that's not even 5 gallons. Even if I had enough food for it, even if I wanted to do what would probably be daily water changes for how much they eat, that's not enough room for one to live for very long. They need to swim.

I'm doing this because, right now, I feed my corals every few days and it keeps the tank fed. The pods multiply, and my tiny goby gets to eat all day. I'd like to have two tiny gobies, though, and it would be nice if I could still do this and have them stay fed. I'm trying to keep two very small fish mostly fed on pods (while feeding said pods), NOT a mandarin. 

 

I'd rather not set up a whole new situation to breed these, and don't think my dorm would let me anyway. It looks like cultures are typically 5 gallons or so, and I don't think "but it's a bucket, not an aquarium" will let me get around the "1 tank per room" thing. Also, air pumps are noisy. Though I guess just a 1gal thing of phyto would probably be easy to keep alive, and everything in here would like that.

 

A canister could work, I suppose, but it looks like they're often kinda big. Might be worth looking at for the heater, but do the pumps on those tend to make noise? 

 

The empty hermit shells I already have for my hermits just have amphipods in them. I think if I put more shells in, I'll just get more amphipods. 

 

Your sandbed thing is interesting. You really have a bunch of nassarius in that small amount of space, though? Full-sized ones? 

 

Can I put a small pod condo under one of the heaters? The temp in that compartment is never really any higher than anywhere else, what with the circulation, and I imagine they have the sense not to sit on the heater and get cooked. I'm not sure it's hot enough to do that, anyway, it just gets warm.

 

Is there such a thing as mini sea lettuce? Or, at least, something that looks like mini sea lettuce. The regular stuff seems like it'd fill up my tank pretty fast. I'm going to have some dragon's breath and whatnot, but so far my happiest and most abundant macro is just the codium. It's mostly not very good for this sort of thing. Except for the hair algae patches on it, copepods sure love that. 

[jservedio]

31 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

The purpose of the pod condo is to he placed in a dark area where they can reproduce safely with no predators.

I made on out of craft mesh with some rock rubble which sits at the bottom of my second chamber.

 

You could essentially place one in the display 

Yup - a pile of rubble/large gravel works well too. Tuck it behind your main rock work and call it a day.

[Derekd]

Well ill just say I've kept a 2.5-3"ish 2 yr old mandarin in a 2.5 gal sumpless tank with a couple pieces of live rock for biofilt and my mp10 at about 10%, for a couple weeks, while I broke down and moved a 130 gallon tank between houses over 4 hours away, by dosing him pods from a culture 3x a day and watching him eat them, and doing water changes every few days as it was such a small volume.

Believe what you want about their care.

Oh you're in a dorm, that limits you a bit, I guess you could just use a 2-liter or normal 12fl oz water bottle by a window half full, open it evacuate the air by compressing then bring new air in and shake often. For your tank size, it might not be too costly to just purchase live commercial phyto and dose as needed.

 

Ive only used canisters on a freshwater setup but they weren't any louder than the hang-ons. if i had to guess i think it will be slightly louder than your current return, depends on pump you use, or if it comes with one. if you just want to use an in external line heater, the noise will depend on your pump choice to push water through it, might be able to split your return? or run your return out of the tank into the heater and back to the bulkhead into display?

 

They (Nassarius Vibex) are about 0.5-0.75 inch right now, I got them from reef-cleaners. I have placed 5 in the first chamber and 5 in my display, their shells are too large for them to travel between the chambers or fit between the skimmer and glass so they spend all their time under the sand and emerge the instant I drop coral frenzy in the display. The spaghetti worms are cool to see grab all the left over foods that goes through the over flow too. Not to mention all the amphis/copepods that migrate from chamber 2. They are in higher density in the first chamber as detritus and leftover food accumulates by design there for them to eat. There are some Dwarf Ceriths in there a well to deal with the algae that grows on the glass from my refuge light above the rock in 2.

 

I don't see an issue with making a pod house under/around your heater as long as the flow isn't impeded too much.

I've never really introduced anything other than grac/chaeto/ulva in my tanks so i can't really give advice there. But, I have seen really small in-tank quarantine/refuge cubes, fill one with some ulva and let it just grow and compress in there and remove some from time to time. Or make a ball of it with mesh as mentioned for rubble by clown79 and stick it to some rock or in a corer?

[Ratvan]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

...no, no I am not trying to keep a 4-inch fish that eats hundreds of pods a day in a tank that's not even 5 gallons. Even if I had enough food for it, even if I wanted to do what would probably be daily water changes for how much they eat, that's not enough room for one to live for very long. They need to swim.

I'm doing this because, right now, I feed my corals every few days and it keeps the tank fed. The pods multiply, and my tiny goby gets to eat all day. I'd like to have two tiny gobies, though, and it would be nice if I could still do this and have them stay fed. I'm trying to keep two very small fish mostly fed on pods (while feeding said pods), NOT a mandarin. 

 

I'd rather not set up a whole new situation to breed these, and don't think my dorm would let me anyway. It looks like cultures are typically 5 gallons or so, and I don't think "but it's a bucket, not an aquarium" will let me get around the "1 tank per room" thing. Also, air pumps are noisy. Though I guess just a 1gal thing of phyto would probably be easy to keep alive, and everything in here would like that.

 

A canister could work, I suppose, but it looks like they're often kinda big. Might be worth looking at for the heater, but do the pumps on those tend to make noise? 

 

The empty hermit shells I already have for my hermits just have amphipods in them. I think if I put more shells in, I'll just get more amphipods. 

 

Your sandbed thing is interesting. You really have a bunch of nassarius in that small amount of space, though? Full-sized ones? 

 

Can I put a small pod condo under one of the heaters? The temp in that compartment is never really any higher than anywhere else, what with the circulation, and I imagine they have the sense not to sit on the heater and get cooked. I'm not sure it's hot enough to do that, anyway, it just gets warm.

 

Is there such a thing as mini sea lettuce? Or, at least, something that looks like mini sea lettuce. The regular stuff seems like it'd fill up my tank pretty fast. I'm going to have some dragon's breath and whatnot, but so far my happiest and most abundant macro is just the codium. It's mostly not very good for this sort of thing. Except for the hair algae patches on it, copepods sure love that. 

Can you get Blue Ochtodes Macro? The densely packed structure gave pods loads of hiding places. Also really beautiful algae for the display

[Tired]

A couple weeks of keeping a mandarin in a tank, while heavily dosing pods, doesn't mean it's viable long-term. It definitely isn't enough space for a fish that size to move around. It just means it won't kill the fish for a couple weeks. That's a dangerous statement to make without the clear note that it involved what I can only assume was quite a large culture of pods- you don't want someone seeing that and thinking it works. 

 

I'd love blue ochtodes. Happily grow a nice big patch of it if I had any. Know anyone who has it in stock frequently, or am I better off on the forum? 

Any tips on what it likes? 

[Derekd]

6 minutes ago, Tired said:

A couple weeks of keeping a mandarin in a tank, while heavily dosing pods, doesn't mean it's viable long-term. It definitely isn't enough space for a fish that size to move around. It just means it won't kill the fish for a couple weeks. That's a dangerous statement to make without the clear note that it involved what I can only assume was quite a large culture of pods- you don't want someone seeing that and thinking it works. 

 

I'd love blue ochtodes. Happily grow a nice big patch of it if I had any. Know anyone who has it in stock frequently, or am I better off on the forum? 

Any tips on what it likes? 

Well you seem more interested in acting like you know more about a fish that I've kept my entire reefing career, almost 10 years now, and even got and successfully kept as my first fish, than the purpose of this thread. I'd suggest you not feed your fish for two weeks and see how many are still alive, two weeks is just about the tail end of their fat storage if they had any and is why it was that time frame.

So I will just consider this thread over for me.

 

Hope you figure out the copepods, it'll work out whatever you decide to do i'm sure as long as you are giving them a food source.

 

Good luck

[Tired]

I don't understand what you're angry about. I said I wouldn't keep a mandarin in this tank because it's too small and wouldn't have enough food. You said that you kept a mandarin alive in a smaller tank, temporarily, by massively feeding the tank and doing a lot of water changes. I said that just because something works okay temporarily, doesn't mean it's a good setup long-term, and that I don't think a tank that small has enough room for a mandarin to swim around.

I also don't like the original statement that amounted to "a 5 gallon tank is enough for a mandarin as long as it has enough food", because I disagree, and I think it requires an explanation of what "enough food" means in this context. Mandarins are pretty active little guys, what with all the scooting around, and I don't think any 3-4" fish (except frogfish and other such stationary lumps) should even be considered for a pico tank. Maybe the lack of space wouldn't kill one, but that doesn't mean it's a good environment.

 

I can't figure out how to make this post sound non-passive-aggressive, but I'm genuinely asking. I'm impressed you kept a mandarin alive in a tank that small, period. But I think I'm missing something here- are you saying a tank that size is an okay amount of space for a mandarin to live in, permanently, as long as it's fed? 

[RedCrow]

What heater(s) are you using? Pick up a Finnex 50w titanium heater(HMA-S). The controller is separate from the heating element, so the part of the unit that is in the tank is at most 7” long. I’ve got it on my 4.5, and it keeps my tank at a steady 76° all winter long. (My house is at 65° in the winter). Titanium produces more heat per watt than glass, so you’ll do more than fine with one heater. Now that you have an open chamber, you’ve got plenty of room for pods. 

 

[Ratvan]

9 hours ago, Tired said:

A couple weeks of keeping a mandarin in a tank, while heavily dosing pods, doesn't mean it's viable long-term. It definitely isn't enough space for a fish that size to move around. It just means it won't kill the fish for a couple weeks. That's a dangerous statement to make without the clear note that it involved what I can only assume was quite a large culture of pods- you don't want someone seeing that and thinking it works. 

 

I'd love blue ochtodes. Happily grow a nice big patch of it if I had any. Know anyone who has it in stock frequently, or am I better off on the forum? 

Any tips on what it likes? 

My sourses are going to be useless to you, being in England. 

 

Not direct flow unless you like lots of little bits flying around the place. Sadly my TSB took a liking to it.. 

[MainelyReefer]

10 hours ago, Derekd said:

Well you seem more interested in acting like you know more about a fish that I've kept my entire reefing career, almost 10 years now, and even got and successfully kept as my first fish, than the purpose of this thread. I'd suggest you not feed your fish for two weeks and see how many are still alive, two weeks is just about the tail end of their fat storage if they had any and is why it was that time frame.

Don’t assume anyone to know your reefing prowess with ten posts on the site and a pompous attitude.  Surely you understand the personal benefit of boasting your unethical success keeping a mandarin in a 2.5g doesn’t outweigh the risk of someone with lesser expert experience with a mandarin trying the same folly. Were you once seen under the handle Derek1980? Having flashbacks

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hi @Tired - if you're looking into breeding pods, and you're okay with it - you can convert the tank to a full (or *almost full) on macrotank. Ratvan's idea of the blue octhodes was neat - that macro is seriously gorgeous as a display macro, You can try different 'colors' and throw in a mix of red and green. BME, sea lettuce is *okay, but it may/may not die off quickly in your system, especially if it's lacking nutrients.

 

I grow various kinds of caulerpa in my pico - I like the blade ones the most because they remind me of seagrass. The fern one is pretty too, but it can be invasive - I have it in three tanks, and I have to prune it weekly because it has a tendency to grow over everything. 

 

As for red macro, can you get red grape there? Or galaxaura? Dragon's breath is another option - I managed to acquire some of it from my LFS, and it's really pretty, and looks nice both in my fuge and DT. 🙂 

 

Just throwing out some suggestions - hope that's okay with you. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

One tank I always took inspiration from, when it comes to keeping macros in the DT was Yoshii's macrotank. Here's a TOTM journal link:

 

 

She kept multiple types of macros in the DT and it looked stunning. If I'm not mistaken, she's still active on NR, so you can ask her questions about it. Pretty sure her system had a lot of pods. (Hope this helps)

[RedCrow]

15 hours ago, RedCrow said:

What heater(s) are you using? Pick up a Finnex 50w titanium heater(HMA-S). The controller is separate from the heating element, so the part of the unit that is in the tank is at most 7” long. I’ve got it on my 4.5, and it keeps my tank at a steady 76° all winter long. (My house is at 65° in the winter). Titanium produces more heat per watt than glass, so you’ll do more than fine with one heater. Now that you have an open chamber, you’ve got plenty of room for pods. 

The element is 5.5”, so it would definitely fit in on chamber. Your tank is a 4.5 lifegard peninsula yes? 

[Tired]

It's actually a TiniTank. I think the filter compartments are about 8" deep, maybe a little less? That'll definitely fit, thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to order one in. I have the two smallest heaters that had the best Amazon reviews, and they're pretty tiny, but I guess they don't have the oomph to handle 10 degrees alone. So I guess I'll have that open compartment to do something with- maybe just block the entrance with a sponge, to keep most of the amphipods out, and put some chaeto in. 

 

I'm leaning towards a macro-dominant tank, I think. It's not going to be solid macros, I want zoanthids and RFAs, but I'd like several shades of color and a slightly 'planted tank' vibe. Plus, that's a great way to reduce the maintenance for me, providing things that grow food and absorb waste. 

I don't really want any caulerpas, not in a tank this size, except maybe tiny little C. verticilliata. I can order any macros found on live-plants.com or ReefCleaners, so that's a nice list of options. Any suggestions on particularly small macros? I know any macro can grow into a large clump, but I like little ones with tiny growth habits, instead of ones where each 'leaf' is a few inches long. 

 

Sweet, live-plants.com has Hypnea pannosa! Just placed an order- I love this stuff. Now I just have to figure out where to put it so it won't cause too much trouble. What materials will it grow on? Maybe I could get it to grow up part of the back plastic, if I gave it something to cling to.