Lots of Pods

Walter White

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
So my 28 nano has really taken off everything is doing great including my pod population. They seem to be mulitplying like crazy and I am now starting to se lots os small white pods covering the glass. I would like to get a Mandarin but i dont think a 28 would provide enough of a food source even with the number of pods available for very long. What are some other cool natural predators I could intoduce to keep the pod population in check?

Would it be cruel to introduce a Mandarin to a 28 if I continually add more pods once the population has thinned out?

Thanks
 

Wicked Color

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
It wont matter how many pods you have in a 28 a mandarin will wipe them out, ask to see the mandarin eat frozen food prior to purchase to ensure it has a long and happy life.
 

Walter White

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
Yep thats my concern with the mandarin and why I know its not really the answer. Any other natural predators that might be more appropriate for a 28? Pods are good I know for may reason and are not causing a problem. Sometime they cause my zoas to close up just from them scurrying around but I'm not digging them on the glass. Kind of looks gross.
 
#4
i have a small red mandarin in my 28 he eats mysis and i feed the tank tigger pods 3 times a week and he is fat and happy but as soon as our move is done he will be going into the 90
 

ShelbyJK500

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
randomfish;113389 said:
i have a small red mandarin in my 28 he eats mysis and i feed the tank tigger pods 3 times a week and he is fat and happy but as soon as our move is done he will be going into the 90
Same here...I have a small spotted mandarin in my 28. We had the same pod explosion about two months ago Kris. Figured that would be the time to introduce the mandy. I check once every couple days at night to see how the pod population is doing after dark. When it appears low, we dose with tigger pods. If we can't sustain it long term he'll go in one of the big tanks when they're up. Seems great so far!
 

Walter White

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
cool I will give it it try in another couple weeks. Wife likes the Benggai Cardinals so I promised her id get one of those first. I really didnt care for them much but I have to say reading about them an seeing them in a nicley colored reef setting they really have grown on me. Got to keep the wife happy. Then thats its four smal fish max for the 28. I'm a little hesitant on going over 3 but I'll see how it goes.

"Happy wife, Happy life"
 
#9
in my 28 i have a pair of clowns (small) a fire fish a mandarin and a cleaner shrimp everybody is fat and happy i would say if you can find a small one you will not regret it i love watching my mandarin he is like a humming bird in water
 

Wicked Color

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
You can get a few fish in there, I wouldnt get overly concerned with that, the feeding and waste is what will make or break you.
 

Zooid

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
Pods ebb and flow.
Sounds like you have amphipods. Those are bigger pods and a lot of fish will eat them.
The white dots on the glass could be copepods. I like copepods. Fish and corals will eat them
and my feeling about them is....the more the better :)
 

Walter White

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#14
Yes I do have some amphipods but not too many, in fact I think I have only seen maybe half a dozen no doubt there are more though. I have seen them hiding in my Zoas but the zoas dont seem to care unless they scurry across the top of the polyp. The ones I was talking about are really tiny and white and can only be seen if on the glass. Some others are brown but still very very small I can only see them with a flash light and looking very carefully there are lots of those too they seem hrmless and my clowns love em.

Something has happened though the population has died way back in the last two days. I tried some aiptasia-X on a few very small patches that were sprouting up around the base of many of my LPS's. I won’t be using that stuff again or at least not very much. The following day after using it my DKH had dropped from 9.5 to 8 and calcium was off the chart. No doubt I used too much for what a 28 can handle. I had been using kalk paste which I’m guessing is most likely the main ingredient but without the applicator was having a really tough time getting at some of them. I got the aiptasia-X mostly for the applicator and to give it a try as it supposed to inhibit the aiptasia from releaseing its spores. It says it completely reef safe (but in what quantities?) it doesn’t say anything about that. My own fault for being too trusting.

I know it was the aiptasia-X that did it as it was the only change that had been made. I had just done a water change the day prior and tested all parameters I never need to dose for at least two days after a water change and my CA was around 460-480ppm, DKH at 9.5. Anyway I did a 20% water change last night and turned my lights down a bit and that brought DKH up to around 9 and calcium down to 500ppm. Will do another 20% change tonight which hopefully will bring everything back where I normally keep it. Seems the sudden change in alk and CA (may) have contributed to what looks like minimal bleaching at the tips of my acros and monties that was the reason for turning my light down a bit (however I did recently change my carbon so it could have just been the clarity of the water and light intensity). Also every coral in my tank was closed as tightly as I have ever seen them. I noticed this morning though some have started to open again and my torch coral as come out a little and is puffing up again.

Too many factors at play here especially for a small tank to know for sure but perhaps that’s where some of the pods went. I know my fire shrimp and crabs seemed a little lethargic and didn’t really go after food they way they usually do. I added a pepermint shrimp in hopes he'll go after any remaining aiptasia. The fire shrimp seems a little ticked off that hes there so we'll just see what happens with that they my duke it out. Who knows.


Thanks to all who have posted!
 
#15
kalgra you may want to ask around and see if anyone local has any cultures of Live Pods going right now. I think you'd be best to locate a nice fresh culture of "tishbe" pods to start your population with. They are more of a Bethnic type that are more likely to stay on solid surfaces (usually rock/glass etc) where your mandarin is more likely to be "hunting". If you want to have more variety get some tigriporus but they tend to stay more suspended in the water column.
 

Walter White

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#16
Im still on the fence with the manarin and have not gotten one yet. The wife had to have a cardinal so I added one of those for now. it probably wont eat and pods that are not floating but for now population dosnt seem to be an issue at the moment. When I get the big tank up ill def try a mandarin then.
 
#17
My luck with mandarins were poor. The longest I was able to keep them was about 6 months. I had two mandarins (on two different ocassions) and both of them were fat and healthy when I had a good pod population. I would supplement with frozen food and watched them consume it without any problems. After a few months the pod population decreased, and their health declined pretty rapidly. The mandarins continued to eat the frozen food but became noticibly slimmer. The first mandarin perished, when I noticed the trend happening again to the second mandarin I sold it off to another reefer. They are a neat fish though!
 

Walter White

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#18
yeah very cool but probably not worth the trouble. On a side note my black and white ocellaris seems to have ditched his perc mate and paired with the cardinal. The two seem inseparable. I feel bad for the perc hes all by himself on the opposite side of the tank now. weird! maybe its just temporary.
 
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