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reef chili and copepods (1 Viewer)

Myclang

Myclang

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I was curious if I add reef chili instead of crushed flake food to my pod tank, if it would be a great food source for them?
 
I was reading a few threads online. Some were saying to ground up fish flake food, or left over frozen. By throwing it in, it starts to add nutrients to the water, and they were saying copepods will not only feed on Phytoplankton, but also detritus, and waste... I was curious if anyone else had found this to be true. Seems like everyone around here only has Nanno phtyo, which I can't use for pods due to it's thick cellular walls that the pods can't get through....
 
You'll get a good amount of copepods with just hair algae. Ulva (sea lettuce) is a good macro for pods, otherwise I"m sure you can find an online retailer with live phyto suitable for pods.
 
Would Cheato work just as well too? I found a few people throw it in, along with flake food. The ultimate goal is to keep a good pod population going with the cheapest amount of money.

My first goal was to culture my own phyto, but it seems nanno won't work for tisbe pods. Not sure if there's a way to grow any other phyto easily from my home.
 
I'm sorry to be asking a bunch of what probably are redundant questions, but cheato is the most commonly used, and it's also used in place of live phytoplankton. correct?
 
You'll be tossing mice to that fat lil' bastard in no time... :ac17:



:laugh:

Chaeto is what I've always used as well, no worries, you'll be fine! Hahaha
 
While many people keep cheato or some other form of macro algae in a fuge like setup and pods do well and multiply in that environment, it isn't really the same process as culturing pods. You could definitely go this route and then just shake the cheato in your display tank from time to time, but I don't think you will have the same results in pod population.

When culturing pods you are maximizing the population for direct harvest on a regular basis. This would usually be done when breeding fish and the pods are being used as first foods for the fry. It can be done with either live phyto or with prepared micro algae like Phycopure or RGComplete.

Foods like crushed up flake food are used as a supplement for the adult copepods but the nauplii will still require phyto.

From the mbi thread referenced earlier:

Re: what phyto for tisbe

by enigma » Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:00 am
In our experience Only ISO and Tetraselmis have a thin enough wall and nutritional profile to achieve high quantities of Tisbe sp. While TET does work, we eventually see some fall off. Part of the problem is like Nanno Tet has a little thicker and tougher cell membrane which causes the organism to expend more energy in digestion. Nanno is simply a waste of time.
Click to expand...
So what you are really looking for if you want to go down the live phyto route is for some ISO or Tetraselmis. If it were me I'd forget the live phyto culture while getting started and feed RGComplete for a while. It is just more convenient.

RGcomplete is a super-concentrated microalgal-based premium quality feed for filter-feeding invertebrates. It has been sized especially for Breeders, Aquarists, and Propagators and includes both a pH buffer and ClorAm-X® (ammonia neutralizer). It has a long refrigerated shelf life of at least 6 months.
Click to expand...
If later down the road you want to try a live phyto culture start by finding some Isochrysis to culture. I wish I could share some real experience with you on this but after all my mandarins started eating frozen and pellets so well it dropped on my priority list. I do still intent to set this up someday when I have more time as I plan on trying to breed the mandarins and I will be attempting to do so with tisbe as a first food.

Good luck whichever route you choose to go :beerchug:
 
I used an entire bottle of Phycopure on my 3-4 gallon setup. Barely turned the water a tea green. I wonder if I added too much, or if the RGcomplete would be more concentrated, and I wouldn't have to use as much? I was thinking about getting the biggest bottle for $35, and I'm sure there's a $25 overnight shipping charge, since it's refrigerated.

Would it make sense to throw cheato in then for the adult pods? Might be able to use less since only the younger pods would feed on it, and then move to the cheato.
 
Alright, so an update. I just ordered RGComplete. I ordered the 32 oz. I'm hoping since I ordered f/2 last week, that I can use this stuff to split into future batches of phyto.

I'm going to keep cheato out of the tank just to avoid any hitch hikers competing out my Tisbe population.


Big shout out to David G, and Data_Loss for being so helpful and answering my questions!
 
if you change your mind on the cheato i could give you some, works well for keeping pods in my 40b with one spotted mandarin
 
Thanks richard nixon. I'll definately keep that in mind. I think for the time being I'll keep the pod tank as pure as possible. I'm hoping to yield some good results. IF this doesn't work for whatever reason, I think I'll go with plan B and just fill it with cheato and fish flakes and go that route.
 
HOLY COW!! I bought a big 32 oz. bottle of RG complete. IT'S so dark green. measured out 4 mls of phyto and instantly turned the tank a nice green color. This product is so much better than phycopure!!
 
No it shouldn't. should be a perfect amount for the 6 months it's good for. 4 mls every couple of days to keep it on a steady feeding schedule.
 
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