farming copepads

I would go back and re-read this. I think you have it flipped. More surface area equals more gas-exchange.

 

Simpler? That makes it sound pretty simple to me LOL. In reality it is much tougher though. The toughest part being consistency. It's two fold too. First you have phytoplankton, then copepods. The phyto seems easy enough, but actually it's quite difficult to produce a quality nutritional phyto culture. Most home made ones aren't actually that good and buying one takes the cost effectiveness out of culturing copepods. However, really to do phyto well, it is not cost effective compared to buying LOL. Then you get to the copepods and they seem pretty easy, at least until you realize you accidentally cultured and have been feeding your tank a culture of flatworms or something... If it was easy to do, buying pods from a pod farm would be cheap.... my preferred method is to dose some sodium silicate into the tank, to drive some diatoms and let them breed in my liverock. That's pretty easy and works quite well...

 

It's even harder when you consider that most home cultures are made with nannochloropsis which most species of pod doesn't ingest when compared with other species.

 

well its been almost a week now and i still have pods living. ive seen a couple big ones and a lot of small ones. im not giving up yet .

 

I'm not telling you to give up. If you want to culture your own phyto, make sure you don't start the culture with nannochloropsis. Use the proper species. Alternatively, you can purchase a pre-made plankton. (Reef Nutrition Phyto-Feast Live and Phycopure Copepod Blend are noted for working well).

 

yup thats what what im useing is the blend.

 

If your using a phyto blend, you will probably need to start the culture from scratch fairly often. Usually one species will dominate, so, if you keep slitting the same culture, you'll probably end up with a monoculture. I also don't mean to discourage, it's a great way to go for those with some patience. I was just pointing out it's not necessarily "easy".

 

well i just dumped my 15g tub that i had filled with aerated salt water and dosing with phytoplankton, just seemed like a big mess of fuge water and debrii, didn't see any pods swimming on the sides either so i think it was a bust, had it running for a solid month or two

 

is it true that pods dont need to be cycled? i have some rubble id like too toose in my fram. so when its ready i can put it in my DT or refuim when i make my sump. i read that theres no cycling for pods but just wanta make sure. plus im going to add a crab to my fram to start cleaning it up. i have like a 5-10lb piece of LR in my farm atm. would scupping up some sand from my DT help at all? i alsp have some of that micro alaege the green ball stuff. i have some in my farm and have some in my DT. should i take the stuff out of the DT and put it with the pods?

 

Assuming the rock is FULLY CURED you can add it. There will be tons of nitrifying bacteria on it. You can also add the chaetomorpha algae. Certain species like to live in it and it will absorb nitrates. (i used shower puffs instead). The bioload of the pods is very small so you don't need sand unless you want it.