Instant Copepods!

ktellerman · 10-25-2009, 07:23 PM

My new nano has cycled and CUC is in. Today, seemingly overnight, there are tiny white crawly guys all over my glass. They seem to be copepods (I had to use a magnifying glass to see their legs and antennae). Is this a good thing? Will I kill them when I use my magnetic glass cleaner during regular maintenance? Will a mandarin survive without breeding them? (I have no sump or refugium). From the posts that I've read it seems that they are OK to have, but do they just appear out of nowhere? How did they get there?

ibanez2k · 10-25-2009, 07:40 PM

Copepods will pretty much just appear seemingly out of nowhere if the conditions are right for them although the amount of nutrient level to keep them alive is a bit higher than you really want in your tank because of the algae problems and other issues it can cause. I wouldn't recommend a mandarin for a nano reef, they require quite alot of live rock and a large tank to be able to feed appropriately and have the right copepod populations. They are very hard to keep in captivity anyways. Don't worry about the pods though. They are a good thing.

ktellerman · 10-25-2009, 07:45 PM

Yeah, I've read that without a huge tank system you're pretty much condemning them to a slow death. Too bad - they're beautiful and cool. Will the copepods just die off as the tank matures?

ibanez2k · 10-25-2009, 07:49 PM

Their population will diminish and return off and on during the life of your tank. They are part of the natural food chain in the reef and never really go away entirely. Yep, mandarins are amazing fish. There's alot of really cool saltwater fish that are great for nano tanks though.

jenglish · 10-25-2009, 09:36 PM

Pods come in pretty easily on rock, algae, water. Like ibanez said, they will rise and fall in population. Most fish cannot resist eating them so they are most populous before you add things that want to eat them