pods??

Hi all, i am in the process of cycling my tank (so far I have only introduced CW and doing water changes) At this point, diatoms are gone, hair algae is almost all gone and see some very small patches of corraline. At this point I notice that my glass walls are covered with tiny moving white dots. From what I read, these seem to be the larval stage of pods? If so, this must be a good thing right? And the goal is to wait long enough to have them migrate to the substrate, LR etc. and establish a stable populatoin. If they are not pods,can anyone hazard a guess (without a picture?)

Manoj

 

Sounds like PODS to me. Their numbers will fluctuate if you don't have a separate place for them to reproduce (fuge for example) safely.


They are beneficial and all that, but as far as your cycle goes, there not really a signal of anything other than you're on the right track!

Good luck.

 

I have a small pile of LR rubble that all of mine hide in. If you create a safe-haven they should do great

 

if your tank is just starting to cycle, from what i understand , water changes are not necessary. will prolong your cycle

 

Except for trace amounts of phosphates, my water chem seems to be pretty good (nitrates below 2.5ppm, 0 silicates, everything else in the optimum range). So yeah, I am thinking of doing the next water change in 3 or 4 weeks. Topping off with 0ppm (TDS) RO/DI right now. So not introducing anything nasty. In the back of my red sea max 250, after the protein skimmer, I do have two chambers where the pods can have fun One is with LR rubble and the other has chaeto with a submersible light on a reverse schedule. The thing though is that after these two chambers, I have a sponge bubble trap before the water is pumped back into the tank. Wondering if the pods can make it through the bubble trap in to the tank...

Manoj

 

Trueish. I have a 6 line wrasse. That pile would be nothing for him to get into. That's what they do. So depends on the fish in the tank...

I've recently started a POD farm in a separate bucket to maintain my populations.

I didn't notice this. Very true. At the minimum, it doesn't help.

You want the bacteria to grow in enough numbers to reduce ammonia and nitrites on their own... not be reducing these levels by water changes.

 

Probably not in any excellent quantity.

This is what I'm doing for PODs.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/fish-food/going-start-pod-farm-65860-2.html#post632328

 

That is true. I have a clown, an algae blenny and a fire fish. They leave it alone, LOL.

 

Nice!! I might do a separate container for the pods if/when I keep blennies, mandarins etc. For now I will watch if enough make it to the DT from the chaeto chamber in the back.

 

If they move they're pods. Copepods are like the cockroaches of the sea (in a good way). For every one you see on the glass there's probably 1,000 in the rocks and in the sand. They only come to the glass to feed on the algae there, it's not their home.

If you really want to have some fun get a red-light flashlight and look at your tank after it's been in pitch black darkness for a couple hours. You should see hundreds (or thousands) of amphipods crawling around. They look like the little rolly-polly pill bugs crawling around. First time I saw that I was astounded... it's amazing how many there can be.

-Doug