Sounds like a great idea. I bought pods from ACC to start mine. The key was to siphon from the top down leaving bottom 2-3 inches to remove detritus and use the remaining pods to feed your tank. Best wishes on your endeavor.
My good friend has been doing,this successfully for over a year in a ten gallon. His tank is set up like a refugium very basic small water fall filter mostly for circulation 1 inch sand bed and some live rock the copepods were introduced by accident as hitch hikers on either the rock or cheato he uses a small light bulb style grow bulb the Led type you see on Amazon or eBay full spectrum.. The tank is left to its on devices and the pod population exploded he gets cycles of amphi pods and copepods and all sorts of little crustations . in the he makes weighted bales of cheato that act like little hotels the pods swarm into to live. When he wants to harvest he pulls one out in rolls it and rinsed it with fresh salt water collecting the pods on a bowl. Rinse and repeat the cycle more pods. Very successful I took one of those bales and,put it in my sump now I have pods populating my sump
