Neptune Aquatics

Seeding pods for a Mandarin

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When I first entered the hobby the mandarin goby at my local fish store immediately caught my eye. I was told that although it was a beautiful it was very difficult to keep. Being new to saltwater I figured I would just give it a shot. Luckily for me, my live rock was teaming with pods for this little guy to eat. Not only did he survive, he thrived.

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About a year later, I made a very expensive mistake... damn flame angle. It bullied most fish in my tank and caused 3 to jump, including my mandarin. Apparently, there is karma in the fish world. I bought a fish from a questionable shop that brought flukes with it. The flame angel was the first casualty. I treated the tank with prazi-pro and saved my clowns, but not without decimating the pods in the process.

Now that I'm a lot older and a little wiser, I'd like to try again. I now have a new empty tank with plenty of hiding places, but no pods. Starting to wonder if I can seed my rock with a bottle or 2 of tiger pods? Maybe some other items from Reed Mariculture?

Has anyone tried this method of pod seeding before? Any tips for success?

Thanks!
 
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Chaeto I have. It has plenty of peanut worms and green stripe mushrooms, but no pods. I think I'll go the reefs2go route. They seems to have a good pod mix for a decent price. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
I have a chaeto bin of sorts. Also thinking of adding a 10gal isolation/prison tank for livestock that turn out not to play well with others.
 
The Tisbe pods from AlgaGen work great. I believe Jess at Diablo Corals is carrying their products now. I seeded my seahorse tank with a bag of the Tisbe pods and I still see tons of pods in that tank.
 
BAYMAC said:
2,000 - 4,000 per bottle, and right now they're near the upper limits... and for only $21. Kinda beats that $10 for 250 + shipping :D
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Sweet!
I wiped out my pods with Prazipro a month or so ago, and have also been looking for
something local to buy.
For some reason, I thought those were dead pods. I must have been thinking of Tigger-Feast.

They are different pods however.
Tigger = Tigriopus californicus
ReefPods has several different pods, like Tisbe biminiensis.
Absolutely no clue if that matters.
 
I tried to seed my tank with Tigger Pods several times and they'd all vanish very quickly. However, the AlgaGen Tisbe pods took off and have been multiplying in my tank for months now. I think its the difference in species of pods. Tisbe pods breed much better in aquariums than the Tigriopus...at least from what I read.
 
I small update to my original post. I opted to go with pod pack from reefs2go. All in all I was satisfied with the mix of pods in the pack. My first order had a good amount of dead loss from delayed shipping. I contacted the company with pictures and they sent out a second pod pack (with a hitchhiker). Overall, great customer service.

The hitchhiker, a small crab about the size of a nickel, turned out to be a little more than I bargained for. I added it to the tank with the pods and it immediately disappeared into the rock work. The next morning I saw a claw and a couple of legs on the sand bed. I figured it fell prey to something else in the tank and forgot about it. Turns out that it had just molted and went into hiding. This thing has grown quite a bit in that past few months. It's now about the width of a tennis ball. It has made a nice little cave in my sand bed under the base rock. I call it the kraken.
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FeliciaLynn said:
I tried to seed my tank with Tigger Pods several times and they'd all vanish very quickly. However, the AlgaGen Tisbe pods took off and have been multiplying in my tank for months now. I think its the difference in species of pods. Tisbe pods breed much better in aquariums than the Tigriopus...at least from what I read.
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Tisbe and Tigriopus are the genus, not species. Each require different conditions. Tisbes are better suited for refugiums that don't get any phytoplankton additions. Tigriopus on the other hand do need the addition of phytoplankton. Tigriopus are much more productive culture species compared to Tisbe if your doing a mono culture, as well as in tank (if fed).

It all comes down to understanding the natural habitats of the life in your tank. Just like corals and inverts, zooplankton have a large range of natural habitats, some of which are not suited the same way others are. Tigriopus are a extremophile. The conditions they can survive are far beyond that of which Tisbe can survive. They are also very productive.

Amphipods, isopods and mysids all prey upon copepods. Adding those to your refugium will limit your copepod production unless you take steps to keep them fed. Tigriopus, given their natural habitat, don't come in contact with either water flow or predators all that often, so our tanks tend to be a hard environment for them to take hold with out assistance.
 
Its an omnivore for sure, look at those claws.

Besides eating stuff, they tend to bulldoze reef heads. A little crab can lift a huge rock, not so awesome when you have balanced your reef just right.
 
I fished the Kraken out of my display yesterday with an angled container and a few salad shrimp as a trap. It's about 50% bigger than the picture of it's molted shell above. I'm temped to just toss it in my sump and let it forage for anything it needs, but I have a slight irrational fear of it clamping down on misc. cables. Or worse, I forget it's there and it clamps on to my finger while cleaning the sump.

Anyone interested in a giant pest crab? ;)
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He is currently in a 1 gallon plastic container (Like the BRS ones).
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