Copepods and filters socks Q
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steve&mari
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Normally I have pods in our filter socks. I use small bucket to knock it around into to put back in the system. Kinda shake em out of the sock. I also only run socks for a day or 2 after water changes.
Darth George
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I run a sock on my 20 and still have a significant pod population. I'm sure it catches more than a few, but wouldn't worry too much about it.
ReeferNoob77
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I never see pods in my socks. I added a bunch to my sump a couple months ago, should I have to replace them regularly?
steve&mari
Blessed Reefer
Do you see them in the system still ? I imagine it depends on the amount of fish eating them n such I've added multiple times when I noticed the drop off in populations of em. Having multiple wrasse and a mandarin can pick em off all day so try to keep healthy population of em.
Branespikin
Valuable Member
I addedd 2 packages of the 5280 aboit 2 weeks ago in my 65 gallon tank. They were all over my tank. Thousands of them. After few days to week i noticed less and less. I had no fish just finished cycling. I went to clean my socks and they were full of pods some dead some alive. I dont see any in my DT i think my sock got em all.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
I agree that filter socks will remove pods from an aquarium. I know I get a bunch of amphipods and copepods in my socks when I clean them. That said, the number going into your socks should be fairly low when compared to your overall system. If you stock your DT with pods and no longer have a healthy population I would suspect one of several causes. Lack of food, poor water quality, or something eating them being the obvious ones.
I think the socks remove the pods to some degree but not all of them. I added the exact same 2 packages about 2 weeks ago as well and the pods covered everything upon adding. During the day now though, I see almost nothing but at night, I start to see pockets where 100's of females of one of the species are gathered and some of the other 2 species are everywhere on the glass.
Pelagic (swims in water column) pods are more susceptible to getting caught there. When adding pods we recommend turning off all filtration for 15-30 minutes to let them swim and find their way into the rocks, macro, etc and get themselves established. This prevents them from being sucked down in the filter sock before they have a chance to get settled. We recommend using 200 micron filter socks if you are going to use them. The ocean has far more current than most tanks, so they are pretty good at getting themselves established where they want to be and not getting carried around aimlessly by currents. Once they get settled in and over the initial "where am I" shock after being added they are typically able to avoid getting pulled placed where the dont want to be. Some will, but most will be hidden in rocks and crevices and in macro algae or sponges, etc! We hope this helps!
You've got it exactly right! They remain very well hidden to avoid being eaten and they come out at night. A blue or red light (ideally IR) will allow you to see them at night without scaring them off.
Excellent feedback! The biggest mistake we see people make when they complain their pods arent thriving is that they arent feeding them anything! Live Phytoplankton is a sure way to ensure your pods have enough food and continue to reproduce. It will also feed your corals and other filter feeding inverts! Pods will also eat detritus, fish waste,a nd leftover fish food but its often hard to know if they are getting enough nutrients this way. Thanks!
Please contact me (Lan) at 772-444-7637 and let's figure out what happened and make it right!
@AlgaeBarn I just am establishing a 33 gallon reef tank. It has been up and running for 2 years, but i moved it to my house now and am setting it up for corals. I am feeding Phytoplankton every 2-3 days but was thinking about establishing copepods in the tank to supplement the fish and coral diet. How do I order from you? I have a filter that sits on the top of the tank, as it is not drilled. If I turn off the pump as suggested should the copepods be able to establish themselves without mass casualties? Lol
Hi there, you can order from us directly at www.algaebarn.com. The pods are strong enough swimmers to avoid your HOB filter, turning it off when introducing them should be good enough. They will eventually populate the filter and live in there as well. Thank you for asking!
If you can avoid filter socks, I would recommend not using them. If you have a lot of macro, it will end up trapping most of the detritius and the macroalgae will consume the waste. Skimmers and return pumps can hurt the pods, but since the pods we sell tend to like surfaces, they won't be going through the return pump 100x a day.
That would be hard to 100% avoid as whatever you filter the detritus through would likely catch both the pods and the sludge. I think it would help if you cleaned it out in sections verses all at once every time.
- Raven
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