Copepods and Amphipods, Facts and Breeding Tips and Tricks

Copepods are extremely important to a well balanced aquarium ecosystem, not only are they extremely beneficial, but they are also an important food source required by some species to survive.

Copepods and Amphipods are a natural part of the plankton food chain, so they will naturally occur in a saltwater aquarium. If you already have a well established tank you probably see many of the little guys on the glass of your aquarium, in the substrate and even on your rocks.

If your tank has not been going long you can easily buy them from many different online vendors. If you want to breed them like we do to ensure your population never depletes check out our YouTube video above. 

Its not to hard to breed pods, just get a 10 galloon tank, have your salinity at around 1.023, temperature around 78 Degrees F, and add chaeto, they love to breed in the stuff, we even added a small amount of substrate and rubble from our live rocks, then some pinky's filter floss from our sump, they were already breeding in it in the sump so we simply transferred it over. We add phytoplankton til the water has a green tint, when the water begins to clear after a few days you just add more, giving the little guys plenty to eat. We also added a small amount of fish flakes or pellets just to ensure we have enough for them to eat. We add fresh Chaeto to their tank and only keep the lights on the pod tank about 2-4 hrs a day. To transfer our pods we will take a small bit of the water, pick up the chaeto and shake it out giving us several hundred at a time, sometimes we will use our Pod Condo, video below, it makes transferring pods extremely easy. Water Changes are very important when breeding pods, you don't want your parameters to get to crazy, and they always breed better right after a water change. 

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Saltwater Clean Up Crew and the Algae they help with

Saltwater Clean up Crews and what types of Algae they help with...

Since the 1980s the phrase "clean up crew" has been used by aquarist and hobbyist, and is used to refer to various small invertebrates used in keeping a reef aquarium clear of pest algae.

The 3 most popular are blue legged hermit crabs, turinaria snails and emerald crabs. Then you have scarlet hermit crabs, limpets, peppermint shrimp, brittle stars, copepods, arthropods, astrea snails, bumble bee snails, nassarius snails, nerite snails, turbo snails, drawf snails, margarita snails, skunk shrimp, sea urchins, and other sea stars.

Different types of marine animals are used for different types of algae, you can use Cerates, Nerites and blue legged hermits to help with Cyano, which is basically a red slimy mess which is long and stringy, and is brownish and sometimes a powdery mess on your aquarium glass and rocks.

You can use ceriths, nerites, astreas, turbos, limpets, chitons and amphipods to help with film algae, which is a micro algae that covers the aquarium glass like a dust.

Blue legged Hermits, Scarlet hermit crabs, turbo snails, limpets, and chitons are the kind of crew you need for long hair algae, which is pretty easy to id, Its usually caused from to much nitrates and phosphates.

Diatoms usually occur after a saltwater tank cycles and is caused from sand or rock or something plastically has recently been added to the tank, ceriths, nerites and chitins are usually the best guys for this job.

Green bubble algae looks like tiny bubbles all over your rock and grows incredibly fast, it can dominate a tank in a month if not taken care of. You will need Emerald crabs for this job. Juvenile emerald crabs are a little better, the smaller the better, so they can really grab hold of the algae without bursting the bubbles. You don't want this algae to spread all over your tank.

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Pod Condo by Barr Aquatics

The New Pod Condo from Barr Aquatic Systems

Barr Aquatics recently came out with this little 3x3 inch Pod Condo, and I just had to get one for my self, Copepods and Amphipods are hard enough to find and transfer from the sump or breeder tank to your display tank, so they created this little guy to make transferring copepods and amphipods easy. Its unique design makes living easy for copepods, giving them 5 levels of a maze like pattern to live and bread in. When you need to transfer pods from one tank to another, simply take the little condo out and place it in the other tank, let it sit for a bit and the little guys will come out and flood your tank with new copepod life!! The Pod condo's are a must have for any marine hobbyist and are sure to make a splash in the marine hobby world!!

The Pod condo is a new addition to the POD world.  It's a place where Amphipods and Copepods can safely congregate, throw parties and hang out, without having to worry about predators.  Each condo unit contains 40 individual serpentine condos, all connected to the central atrium.  A total of about two feet of linear space, or about 40 square inches (281 cm) of space is provided for our little friends.

The central atrium serves another purpose though. Cover the hole with your thumb and move the condo to the display tank, then us a baster to blast water in the central hole. all the ne'er-do-well slacker pods that are hanging around the condo will be blasted out in to the tank, to make tasty treats for your fish! Replace the condo in your sump, and let the new tenants move in.

Each unit has about 4 oz of PETG, and measures about 3x3. Available standard in translucent blue, and other colors via special request.

These cool condos are only $24 and well worth the money, and they come in translucent green, translucent blue, translucent red, black, yellow, purple and bubblegum pink!! Get yours at Barr Aquatic Systems

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