What eats copepods?

Add Homonym wrote:

Do you have much in the way of small bristle worms, or an overly
aggressive cleanup crew? You need to have a fair amount of deritus
present in the tank for the pods to thrive. Adding supplemental algae
will help as well.

I've got quite a few bristle worms. I also have several blue-legged hermit crabs
and one large electric blue hermit. A bunch of little starfish and some sort of
small snail arrived as hitchhikers. I have lots of algae since I upgraded my
lighting; I'm using a phosphate reactor to try to cut it down some.

You may want to try culturing pods - 1 single mandarin can clean out a
whole tank quite easily. I used to do this by having a 10 gal with some
small rocks in it which cycled, then added tiger pods to.

I'll look into that. I have a 10 gallon with a pair of goldfish in it
downstairs. Once it warms up enough to sneak those into someone's pond, that'll
give me something for pods. A 'fuge is way down the road right now.

George Patterson
If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess
to anything.

"George Patterson" wrote in message newsgZEh.2521$QI4.1557@trnddc01...
Add Homonym wrote:

Do you have much in the way of small bristle worms, or an overly aggressive cleanup crew? You need to have a fair amount of
deritus present in the tank for the pods to thrive. Adding supplemental algae will help as well.

I've got quite a few bristle worms. I also have several blue-legged hermit crabs and one large electric blue hermit. A bunch of
little starfish and some sort of small snail arrived as hitchhikers. I have lots of algae since I upgraded my lighting; I'm using
a phosphate reactor to try to cut it down some.

You may want to try culturing pods - 1 single mandarin can clean out a whole tank quite easily. I used to do this by having a 10
gal with some small rocks in it which cycled, then added tiger pods to.

I'll look into that. I have a 10 gallon with a pair of goldfish in it downstairs. Once it warms up enough to sneak those into
someone's pond, that'll give me something for pods. A 'fuge is way down the road right now.

George Patterson
If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess
to anything.

I think hermit crabs will decimate a pod population, since the crabs and pods are most active at night.

Yukon wrote:
I think hermit crabs will decimate a pod population, since the crabs and pods are most active at night.


Hm, hermit crabs were already on my bad list.

I did buy some blue legged hermits which seem much better behaved, and
haven't attacked any of my snails yet.

--Kurt

"KurtG" wrote in message ...
Yukon wrote:
I think hermit crabs will decimate a pod population, since the crabs and pods are most active at night.


Hm, hermit crabs were already on my bad list.

I did buy some blue legged hermits which seem much better behaved, and haven't attacked any of my snails yet.

--Kurt

I just think that since crabs are carnivores, and you see them reaching
and picking into rocks all the time, that they'd love pods.

I don't think that hermit crabs will have any effect
on pod populations. I think they are too hard for
the hermits to catch.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets


Yukon wrote on 2/27/2007 1:50 PM:

I think hermit crabs will decimate a pod population, since the crabs and pods are most active at night.

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message news
I don't think that hermit crabs will have any effect on pod populations. I think they are too hard for the hermits to catch.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets


Yukon wrote on 2/27/2007 1:50 PM:

I think hermit crabs will decimate a pod population, since the crabs and pods are most active at night.

You could be right. I just thought that they could reach into some of the
nooks and cranies in the rock and pinch some out. It just seems that whenever
I have a higher crab population, the pods are much less noticible when the
lights come on. But it could just be that the pods hide more when they sense
more crabs around? Does that make any sense? Maybe I should just stop typing now.