Benefits of adding pods?

[IOnceWasLegend]

I've seen recommendations from people to add pods (usually copepods) to the tank, and I'm curious what benefits they offer. I know they provide food for some fish, and munch on protists/algae, but "adding biodiversity" comes up a lot as well. So, a couple questions:

1. Why does this biodiversity matter (unless it's just trying to mimic the normal ecosystem) and is there an "end point" to shoot for?

2. I started with dry live rock, live sand, and Bio spira. I've added a few pieces from other reefers' tanks, but haven't seen any pods; is it a good idea to seed my tank with them (and, if so, why)?

3. Would they provide food for a zebra goby and/or firefish?

4. Would I need to keep replacing them since my tank is only 20g with no refugium to breed them in?

Thanks for the help!

 

[jepoy]

Only reason to seed your system with pods is if you want to keep pod eating fish like mandarins or wrasses and you want to get a headstart. Otherwise pods will show up in your system eventually whether you like it or not.

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[JVU]

My take on your several questions-

There is reasonable theory and some anecdotal evidence that biodiversity in the microbiome and small critter categories helps nutrient cycling and pest algae control going smoothly. I don’t think it is any more concrete than that. No defined endpoint or way of measuring how you are doing in that respect. Adding 1 or even a few different mono-species of ‘pods almost by definition isn’t really helping diversity, since there are thousands of species out there, and largely unknown.

Copepods and amphipods are excellent scavengers, so they can be a very useful part of the clean up crew, even as just a couple added species.

They are required for food for several types of fish, as well as optional food for many types of fish, coral, and invertebrates.

Having a refugium certainly helps them establish a population, but many can multiply in the display tank too, at lower levels. Also some species sold don’t really repopulate in our reef systems due to specific requirements. For me personally, it seems too expensive and time consuming to always be adding them manually, but it does make sense to add the ones that can reproduce in your system as clean up crew and part of the food web.

 

[Chromis]

I think the biodiversity benefit to pods is about having a dynamic nutrient export/conversion since pods can reproduce very quickly in response to increased nutrients/algae. When there are more pods, maybe you notice you don’t need to feed your fish as much, so nutrient import slows and things come back to balance. Similar to how refugium macro algae will grow in response to increased nutrients to help keep balance.

 

[ofzakaria]

I would add pods in 2 cases only..
1-As fish food knowing that it's a day food and whatever left over will die of the next case is not achieved
2- to cultivate but I would need to make sure first that my system can indeed sustain pods.

 

[Coral reefer]

It isn’t too hard to culture copepods for anyone curious about how to consistently add them to your tank.