Importance of Pods

[DYIguy]

I've found how pods are part of the cuc early on and how they add to the diet of many fish and some corals, but if it wasn't for them some of my fish wouldn't have made it- blennies and some gobies. my Canary and striped blennies only ate pods when I first got them- for the first couple of weeks, my sand sifting gobies were the same. @amado brought up a point recently about having as many different species as you can in a tank. I've stocked these - acocyclops/ tigger before. wondering if I should get a batch of more diverse species and everynes thoughts in general- btw I have amphipods

 

[amado]

Pods are part of an ecosystem. The more you add the better your reef will do.

 

[NJTaxMan]

I just started up a culture. Apparently my fish have cleaned my tank of all pod life. I am sure there are one or two in my sump..but I cant find one to save my life in my DT

 

[Rjmul]

And on the other side of the spectrum you have than from tidal gardens talking about how he likes to occasionally nuke a tank with intercepter and immediately seeing the corals explode in growth.
"I don't think corals really like pods"
-than

edit :
Maybe not "explode in growth" but he said they clearly look better after he does this

 

[Subliminal]

I have so many pods in my tank they’re crawling everywhere and thru everything. One of my favorite parts of the reef tank. And my tank totally skipped the ugly stage, for which I think I have pods and dosing phyto to thank.

 

[nightmarepl]

Good post, during my first 2 years my tank was in decent shape to make perspective / knowledge had tons of pods then i got some weird algae i tried to fight off during thay process i wiped my entire pod population not sure if it was the chemicals or the blenny i have but they faded quick…
I finally got my numbers to the best shape I’ve ever seen them to be
Phosphates roughly 16-20
Nitrates 15ish
Chaeto actually is surviving / small growth
Algae in sand isn’t as bad as it was started to fade out still zero signs of pods granted i haven’t added anything that bring some pods
Next step is to seed the tank looking at 4-5 different species will prob start directly in the sump using pod feeders

 

[Rueric]

phosphates 16-20?

 

[DYIguy]

I bought a striped blenny a week ago and it wouldn't eat flake or frozen until yesterday. If it weren't for the pods in my tank it most likely would have starved. I had the same thing happen with my canary blenny. The only pods I can actually see are the amphipods which are huge compared to copepods. Once there was a population explosion in my 40b after I moved all fish and corals to the 75g- pods (apocyclops most likely) all over the algae on the glass.

 

[nightmarepl]

phosphates 16-20?

.20 ppm is roughly what my system is sitting at right now it was .90 2 months ago which was insane wanna bring it down to around .05-.10 which is doable with a lot of gfo but I’m trying to stabilize the system strictly on chaeto eventually removing the gfo but i doubt it waiting till i can stock the tank with pods heavily

 

[DYIguy]

.20 ppm is roughly what my system is sitting at right now it was .90 2 months ago which was insane wanna bring it down to around .05-.10 which is doable with a lot of gfo but I’m trying to stabilize the system strictly on chaeto eventually removing the gfo but i doubt it waiting till i can stock the tank with pods heavily

Be careful with gfo- I'm currently using Phosguard, dosing with Phophate-E and have both chaeto and graciallis and still can't my phosphates under .2