pods - and how they propagate

I searched for a good while and did not find a decent thread on copepods and how they propagate through your reef system as a whole.

My first reef tank, born dec 09, has come along way and is now home to hundreds if not more pods in my refugium. However I do not find many in the display tank. I diligently looked for them during the night and day and barely find any, and yet the population in the refugium is thriving. By the day I have seemingly more pods in the fuge.

The fuge dumps directly into the return chamber. There is a baffle between the return chamber and the fuge. For the pods to get into the rest of the system they would have to climb up and over the glass baffle and proceed to be sucked in and shot up through the return into the display.

I see people debate use of filter socks because of the lack of pod propagation, but I think in my case its irrelevant. If they're not going up and over the baffle they're not going to go up and over my overflow into the sump. Fact, there are 0 pods in the rest of my sump.

So my question here is how do I go about getting them to propagate elsewhere? They're very healthy for the tank and down the line I would like to have a mandarin.

Do I simply take a chunk of chaeto that are full of pods and swish it in the display for a moment to get them to go into the display?

Next, how do they propagate? They seem to thrive in my 12hour lit refuge that has two pieces of live rock, chaeto, mangroves, and graciliaria. I do not put any additional food into the refuge although every now and then I will see a flake of food get its way into there. I have a current diatom outbreak in the fuge itself. Not sure why as no plastics have been added to the tank recently. The pods seem to eat that though unless they're just frolicking in it

 

Just take some chateo and put it in your DT from your fuge weekly, monthly, etc...

 

im going to put a screen on the return plumbing to keep larger snails out and not rely on the pods finding their way to the display. ill 'seed' the dt from chaeto clumps that have then packed in there

thanks!

 

copepods will still most likely fit through the screen, unless you have amphipods (cops on steriods) but i take a bunch of chaeto and swish it around next to my return pump so the pods get shot out into the display and it is really fun to watch

 

one thing I did, well I wouldn't advise but I did this with luck. I bought a mandarin without a significant pod populus and no greenery in the fuge, I bought what they call copepods and tiggerpods live in a bottle. I shut off all the pumps for a while, turned off the lights and opened up the whole bottle and squeezed them into the tank onto rocks, in the sand, behind rocks. I bought the pods for about 4 months about 1 every 2 weeks and I still have my mandarin to this day, he is around a year and a half old

 

Gresham is the "pod god", no? PM him & he'll help you out.

 

I throw a small piece of porous sponge into the fuge for a few days and then into the DT it goes for a few hours and give it a squeeze or two to help the pods disperse into the DT.

 

good idea. cuz i tried the chaeto idea and little bits of chaeto are now in my DT that im carefully pulling out to throw back into the fuge.