HOW TO KNOW IF YOU HAVE PODS IN YOUR TANK

[Reef By Steele]

I get asked all the time how to tell if there are pods in a tank. I also have customers respond after a period of time that they don’t see pods on their glass, and wonder if they were bad or died. Since we got back into the hobby, I have regularly added copepods to ensure I have plenty for our mandarin and other pods hunters. However I never really focused on whether they were reproducing in the tank. I didn’t know how to determine if I had pods, and just made it a regular “maintenance” item. Fast forward about two years and I noticed my clownfish had spawned and had a batch of eggs. I quickly jumped on the internet to see if I could raise them. The first hatch was so exciting and I spent half the night trying to collect the fry. With a phone flashlight to attract them to where I could try to catch them, I noticed small critters “crawling” on the glass. At first I thought they were fry, but it was soon apparent that they were Apocyclops copepods. In all the tank watching I had never noticed them before.

In another tank, our 3XL900 which is our Angel tank that holds our Mascot, a Blue-faced Angel. We had an extended fallow period after a rough patch of ich. Since my wife @Ocean_Queenie cleans the glass with our mag floats, she left this tanks glass I cleaned as there were no fish to watch, lol. As the glass covered with algae, it became absolutely covered with life. Bristle worms, mysid shrimp, Munnid isopods, amphipods, and a variety of copepods. Prior to this fallow period I would not have been able to tell you that any of these were in the tank. We discovered the same thing in our qt system as we don’t focus on the glass when it is fallow between fish acquisitions.

Unlike the pods in the clownfish tank that I discovered at night, in the other two systems they were on the glass all day. I didn’t ever see any of these when there were fish in the tanks which leads me to believe that they are pretty smart and try to keep a low profile, with pretty powerful survival instincts.

I thought it would be interesting to share these observations, and see where and how others see their smaller crustacean resident.

One thing that got this back to the front of my mind, was a recent reply from one of our customers, @niccumec to a PM conversation we have been having. He started a new tank that has been cycled now for 30 days. On May 10th he ordered a gallon of our benthic Blended Pod Buffet and Harpa Pods to seed his new 190 gallon tank. Friday he reached out to me and sent me this picture (used with his permission).

He told me how he had been looking all over his refugium and tank and never saw a pod, I’m guessing during these searches that he might have been both frustrated and possibly disappointed in having spent $$ with us (at least that is probably how I would have felt). But he continues to state that he left an area on his glass to be covers with film algae, and started noticing pods on it as soon as it really started to develop. He said the glass was literally covered in pods. He tagged us in another thread where he posted this picture of his new tank.

I have to say this is a pretty amazing looking tank 30 days in. I believe we may have started talking after I posted this thread about fighting the uglies.

Can you beat the Ugly Stage?

How to beat the uglies!! Are you starting up a new tank or are you about to embark on your first journey into the exciting world of saltwater aquariums? There are multiple great threads on the forum that will answer every cycling question you can possibly ask. There is vast information on...

www.reef2reef.com

From the look of his tank, I would say that at this point he is definitely out ahead of them. Sherry and I are so excited to follow along as this tank grows and matures. He has been consistently dosing live phytoplankton which helps to control nutrients while boosting the health and propagation of the copepods. I discuss the amazing power and benefits of phytoplankton, the fundamental building block, being the first link of the food chain in our natural oceans in this thread.

Phytoplankton, the reef’s super power!

What is Phytoplankton? Microalgae, what we call phytoplankton, are aquatic, microscopic, single-celled, photosynthetic organisms. Similar to plants (their land counterparts), phytoplankton have chlorophyll in their cells, and generate food through the process of photosynthesis...

www.reef2reef.com

I believe live phytoplankton is one of the best additions, in my opinion, that we can add to our beautiful slice of the ocean we keep in our little glass boxes (Ok glass and acrylic boxes).

So please join this conversation, and share your secrets on where and how to observe copepods and other micro fauna in our tanks.

Thanks
Kent

 

[niccumec]

Update…. over the past week both ends and large swaths of the front and back glass of DT have been spotlessly cleaned for me!! The only inhabitants to date are the pods (and phyto, of course). Amazing that these tiny creatures can do such a good job. There are a couple of areas where there is more than film algae and they have not touched those areas. Perhaps I will need some CUC for that. I’m not going to clean the glass to see what they do over the next week or so. If they are doing that for the glass, I guess it is a good assumption that they are also working on the sand and Marco rock?

Interestingly for me, the only time I see the pods is actually when the lights are on (daytime for DT and night for Refugium). Perhaps this is because there are not predators yet in either tank as my first inhabitants are still in QT tank. It will be interesting to see if they retreat during the day in the presence of my new clowns. Clown pair go into DT next week.

I was also worried that with such a high turnover rate in my DT ~1600GPH (plus 2 powerheads) that all the pods in the water column would get swept away to the sump (and then to skimmer and UV ). While I added 4 types benthic (crawly) pods, I do see tons in the water column as well in the bright lights. Seems these little guys are pretty good swimmers!

I have been getting a light brown material in my skimmer and lower flow areas of my sump. At first I thought I was skimming out the pods and phyto that I spent $$ on, but now I think it is diatoms. Just bought a cheap microscope (TOMLOV DM602 Pro 10.1") to check things out and will post update.

Still new to this hobby - very interesting and fun so far!!!

 

[Shaina Carey]

If I look closely, I can see pods on my live rock and on my glass. Here is a video I took the other day.

 

[smitten with ocean life]

very neat!

 

[Polymate3D]

I have always been able to see random things moving about in small gaps within the rocks, but my quarantine aquarium (34L Fluval Flex) has been left for 6 weeks now with no predators or much rockwork. Just look at what it is like!