unintentionally yes I do VERY well at it I got pods comming out of my ears (not litterally ya wierdos!). Basically they "infest" my cheato and I shake that out every other day when my sun coral is open, feeds that and my clam, it's loads of fun watching all them buggers as well.
IMO a well set up refugium is the best way to grow pods. Most people add them back into the reef but I see no reason why you could not isolate them to have a bumber crop.
I have a side culture of pods and it does pretty well. Seems like it's a bit cyclical in nature, but it is growing all the time. (Especially when I remember to feed it)
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I think newly hatched copepods might be too big for baby clown fish. I believe they need rotifers as a first food.
Dick
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I think I might try starting 1 culture of each. After listening to the podcast about copepods it has got me interested in culturing them. I'm going to be trying to raise my clownfish again since they keep putting out eggs every 2 weeks. I was concerned with the density that I would be able to get with copepods. So I guess I should start out with both of them. I also have a question about microalgae. I'm trying to get away from using much artifical light with them. I'm going to get one of the window sill extenders and put my cultures in the window. Do you think the indirect sunlight would be enough to keep them going. I live in florida but there are a lot of trees around me. The window I'm putting them in does get direct sunlight in the morning but I plan on keeping the blinds closed. What do you think?
I think newly hatched copepods might be too big for baby clown fish. I believe they need rotifers as a first food.
Nope. They are absolutely suitable, and higher in nutritional content.
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Thanks everyone for your help. Yes, I have listened to the podcast and that is why I'm wondering if people have been able to culture enough of them to feed baby clownfish? Like am I going to be able to relay on a culture of them or should I have both a culture of copepods and another culture of rotifers? I've been the rotifier route and I know it works but I'm not sure about copepods. I know I need a lot of rotifiers to feed my baby clownfish but how many copepods will I need and are the baby clownfish able to eat them when they seem to just crawl on the glass? Example, I notice most of newly hatched baby clownfish are driven to light and eat in the water colomn? Thanks to everyone for the welcomes to the talking reef forums. I found about about the podcasts through reefcentral. And I found out about the forum from the podcasts. I love listening to them. Rob keep up the good work.
Actually many copepods are free swimmers and would be readily available in the water column as a food source.
There can be no doubt about one thing... raising rotifers is cake compared to pods.
Right now I am pretty much doing it for the fun of it, although I am hoping to have the opportunity to someday raise clownfish. I have had two catastrophic incidents with my pods where they just totally crashed. One time I overfed, the other time was a temperature issue. I have been fortunate that a friend and I both decided to try culturing them at the same time so each of us is a back up culture to the other.
Culturing pods is a fairly new thing. The problem with copeopds is stability. Anyone who works with them commercially will tell you this. The bottom line is that comparing pods to rotifers is like comparing a 76 AMC Gremlin to a 2007 BMW. But if you can't produce enough of them, you're correct... they're worthless.
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Thanks for the help JeffDubya. Your experience is what I'm looking for. I'm thinking of using cultured algae as the food since you can't really overdose on that. Since I plan on raising my clownfish young I might take a 2 culture approach. One of each. I hope to get this started soon.
When you were referring to the pods that are climbing through your cheato, I think those are more likely isopods, although they could be copepods. The tough thing about pods is there are literally hundreds of species, and they all do different things. As far as *where* fish will eat them, I don't think being on the glass will mean diddly to a hungry fish.
I would strongly recommend listening to the podcasts on culturing Phytoplankton, especially the one where Rob interviews the guy who runs alga-gen. That's where I buy my starter cultures.
I am currently culturing isochrysis and tetraselmis, both very high in the nutrients fish and other organisms need, unlike the more popular (and easier to grow) nanno. Learn to culture your phyto first, you will need it to grow anything else.
Then, listen to the entire podcast on copepods (it's a long one) a few times, buy you starter culture. Good luck and have at it!
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i am doing this now for my clowns, the thing is you have to have the right kind of pods,
i thought i posted to this thread, but my response is n here.
there are two types, Harpacticoid, and calanoid you want the calanoid as they are more free swinging (i hope i didn't mix that up)
and they are generally small enough to feed.
the problem as alluded to is density, since baby clownfish cant see well, and they cant hunt, they needs to be LOADS of them in there. basically a baby clown will curl its tail, open its mouth, and shoot forward. your job is to keep so many pods/rotifers in there that every time one does this it gets food. that means you need ALOT of copepods, levels which i have NOT been able to reach yet so i reley on rotifers still.
i am working on the copepods too though because they are MUCH more nutritious
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Thanks Rob. That info helps alot. Basically currently there is no way to raise copepods to a density that will be enough to feed baby clownfish alone. I will culture both of them and use as much copepods as I can. Thank you to everyone for all your input. Great podcasts keep up the good work.
I got pods comming out of my ears (not litterally ya wierdos!). Basically they "infest" my cheato and I shake that out every other day when my sun coral is open, feeds that and my clam, it's loads of fun watching all them buggers as well.
to Talking Reef Community, bandit.
to TR. Have you listened to the copepods podcast? It is #69 and I think it would answer a lot of your questions.
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ryan 
