Copapod care

[HClH2OFish]

After adding a 2.5 chunk of LR to my 15gal I'm finally getting copapods in my tank. Initially I had a *lot* of the little critters sitting on the back glass, but shortly after changing the filter media, I now have hardly any. I'm unsure if that was the cause of their disappearance as most of them were far away from the inlet (it's an Eclipse tank)
I noticed my Nitrate levels have dropped way down...from around 40 to around 5. I've never been able to get my ammonia levels below .25 but I am using the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kits which I understand to be less than reliable.
My question is what could have caused their die off? Do they need more lighting than I have? It's a 2 bulb hood with the standard Eclipse 15watt flourescents.
I also noticed most of the coralline algae on my LR seems to be dieing off. Would this be due to the lighting or something else I should test on?
I currently have no skimmer as I can't fit a HO due to the hood, and I don't have room for a sump under the stand.
Any ideas on how to keep my copapod population up? What do they eat?

 

[brandon4291]

Hello there HCL,

Glad to see your new posts in our forum. Take your jacket off and stay awhile!

The copepods do not depend on light for survival. Hi/low/med levels have no long term effects. They do however depend on protein/food acquisition to thrive and reproduce, usually there is plenty floating around or laying as detritus (waste grime) in our tanks. Even if feeding is restricted, copepods can pick off the dying organisms from the LR and tiny bits of waste matter that is always associated with live rock/live sand/corals and fish. When people want to have more copepods, they usually plumb in some kind of refugium and/or feed the copepods directly. By that I mean make sure there is some leftover of whole food particles after fish have picked all around for them.

Remember, copepods may display different characters based on lighting (willingly coming out at night/staying hid during the day) but it won't affect their lifespan. Also, your LR is so full of holes you may have tons of pods but have a hard time seeing them until they choose to come out. For the most part, people dont do anything about pod populations at all, they will adjust their populations to the specific parameters of your tank and reproduce accordingly.

Your coralline is affected by two chief components: Calcium and Alkalinity additions. You need to be using some kind of additive for calcium and carbonate to have the best coralline growth. Having once-pink patches that fade white in the center is a great indicator of unstable calcium/alk levels. Lighting plays some role in coralline deposition, but not to the extent of properly dosing calcium/alk additives.

BMason

 

[Anonymous]

I've notices in my big tank that we have tons of copepods in the rubble of rocks, they are under shells. Of course our big tanks are a little different than Nanos.

I never noticed copepods in the nano we ran.

 

[goodkitty]

Hello,

I am new to this forum as well but have been lurking doing lots of research for our new nano tank. I just thought I would jump in and let you know that when we had an Eclipse hood on our 29 gallon I did tons of looking around and found 1 h.o.t. skimmer that will fit an Eclipse hood WITHOUT cutting the crap out of it. Saline Solutions makes one and though it probably isn't the best at least it will fit through the tiny holes in the back of your hood(the little cutouts with covers).

Best of luck

 

[HClH2OFish]

Thanks for the info on the HOT.. I'll check it out.
I checked during feeding today and did notice tons of the little guys in the back of the tank under the rocks so they're probably just finding a new home in the tank
Would it be beneficial to add some calurpa algae to the tank to assist with nitrate levels or would this cause problems in the tank?

 

[nanocat]

I'd avoid the calurpa and use chaeto instead. Less chance of it going sexual.

 

[HClH2OFish]

Thanks I'll see about picking up a bit from my LFS tomorrow....Gonna get another chunk of LR and maybe a cup of LS from them as well...and I've gotta see if they'll deal on their Eclipse Tank PC retrofit kit....I've seen retro kits, but this one if specific for the Eclipse hood...$75 including the PC, ballast and all needed hardware....I want to get the light levels up a bit and see about getting a bubbletip...