purchasing pods?

[mandarin man]

im going to start a refugium and i would like to buy some copepods to put in there to get me a little colony going to ensure my mandarin gets nice and fat. i was just wandering if there was a good website or if someone on here sold any? please reply with any exerience or advice in purchasing copepods

 

[tecwzrd]

You can buy live ones from the sites below:
http://www.reefnutrition.com/
http://sciencekit.com/category.asp?c=435228

 

[mandarin man]

so i purchased like 2000 pods though one of the suggested websites. now should i dump all of them in my tank at once? and if i do will they reproduce and thrive in my tank just fine or not?

 

[tecwzrd]

You can dump them right into your main tank or more preferable a refugium if you have one to harvest them when needed. They feed on micro algae such as Phyto-Feast and assuming your mandarin or other fish don’t decimate them too quickly they will reproduce.

about.com has a ton of info on the care of Copepods
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/copepodamphipodprofile1/

 

[DragonForce]

How big is your tank? How long have you had it? What fish are living in it right now? How much Live rock do you have?

 

[mandarin man]

tank is 55gal had it for 2 years, approx 100lbs of lr. (mom bought some lr and she doesnt remember how much exactly). yellow tang, coral beauty, firefish, clarki clown, green mandarin, bicolor angel, 2 yellow tail damsels, watchman goby, 2 peppermint shrimp, brittle and sand sifter star, 1 undetermined host anemone to clown(guessing regular LTA). good size cleanup crew

 

[mandarin man]

but in hurricane rita we went without power for 5 days and it killed the majority of our fish and i know we used to have a bunch of pods i would see them everywhere but now i dont see as much of them after the hurricane. thats why i have a refugium set up and trying to get pods asap to start "breeding" them. just to be safe. mandarin is starting to look a lil thin