POD farm

for a pod farm do i need to keep the water heated if room temperature is 70 degrees in my house or do i need to buy a heater?
the materials im using is plastic white tank, salt water, no heater or bubbler but im doing weekly water changes so it doesnt turn foul, 4,000 copepods to start out, 3 shower poofs, 1 small piece of lr. i plan to rotate dosing the shower poofs every other week and i will never remove the lr from the POD farm

 

anyone?

 

just get a cheap one.. they are $5 for a 5-10 gal heater at my lfs..

 

You will probably get better breeding with a cheap heater but I had no problem breeding them in a glass milk bottle halfway full with just an airstone and phyto. I got a fuge now though

 

ok thanks

 

UPDATE!!! i bought three shower poofs, 1.5 gallon shallow rectanglular plastic box with lots of surface area, small piece of lr, i am not using a heater or a bubbler because my house is kept at 70 degrees and i know its not optimum breeding temperature but they will survive. also i am not using bubbler because of splash and lots of noise so instead my box has alot of surface area. finally i bought 4000 copepods. for their food im using phytoplex and crushed up flake food. any suggestions, tips or good to know facts are appreciated.
p.s the way im dosing my tank is leaving the piece of lr in there the entire time so i always have a supply of copepods and eggs and i will put a shower poof in the tank every other week and leave it in my dt for three hours at night. i will cylce these so they have a good amount of time to lay more eggs

 

o and i have to say i got most of my ideas from peredhil's pod farm thread

 

bump

 

rotating the poofs for dosing is a good idea.

the air stone is also used for circulation (other than for oxygenation I mean). you'll need some. if not from stone, then from something else. doesn't have to be much of anything at all really - just so the water doesn't get rank really.

I resolved the splash problem with saran wrap and painters tape

I resolved the noise problem (those are loud aren't they?) by putting the whole farm in my armoire and shutting the door.

I also recently threw in a clump of chaeto. I also added a hermit crab to eat all the garbage that accumulated on the bottom (fish flakes, etc). (You couldn't see the floor of the bucket). It cleared that up in a few days, but I left it in there. Been over a month now and it's still walking around and eating.

the heater is more to match your DT so there's less shock to them when you dose them. I haven't compared, but have been told this several times. they'll survive all kinds of conditions, but sudden swings (like temp on dosing) isn't really a condition as much as it is a spike...

I generally let my water level in my bucket drop a good half inch before I top it back off... not to drastic a swing. So don't worry to much about that.

When you dose them, here are my tips:

• after lights out so the fish leave them alone
• somehow wedge or weight the poof so it stays against the rock - they're more likely to "let go" of the poof this way and can immediately start colonizing.
• turn off filters for the time span this takes
• I only leave my poofs in the DT for about 15-30 minutes... 3 hours seems unnecessary to me, but wouldn't hurt.

 

waht do baby copepods look like i have some PODs that look like a tiny ant with two backs that kinda look like an infinity symbol(sideways eight) and i have some that have one main body with like a small tail thing and there a little bit lighter any ideas on what stages of life they are in?