'pods with no fuge

[dmolavi]

Due to space constraints, my sump is fuge-less. What's the best way for me to raise pods? Can I just add some to the DT and hope for the best, or should I do the mason jar in the sunlight route?

Also, with my current stock of fish (clowns, damsels, goby) and the corals I have (see my 40 in my signature), would pods be needed now? Are they good to have anyway? FWIW, I will be adding a few more fish to the tank, and come spring, a bulb anemone.

[PB_Smith]

when I had my 30 set-up I made a small, 4"x7"x6", in-tank refugium out of acrylic I got at Home Depot and used PVC cement to glue it together. I put a little Fiji Mud and some fine sand in there, threw in a bunch of cheato and within 4 weeks it was teeming with pods that make their way out of it and into the tank proper. I had a small fountain pump mounted underneath and holes drilled in the opposite side. Worked great.






one other option is too create a safe zone for them. I have seen people use strawberry baskets filled with rubble and turned upside down on the sand. Then seed it with pods and the idea is that they will have a place that fish can not get to them.
Personally I had much better luck with the in-tank fuge.

[dmolavi]

I already have a large acrylic box in my tank, the overflow for my beananimal. I'd rather not add another to the DT. If I knew that they could survive in the overflow box, I'd section off part of that. They'd get sucked into the sump and sent on a water slide ride from hell back into the DT...

[melosu58]

If you have a lot of porus LR in the tank they will hide and reproduce in the rock but you have to have so much.

[dmolavi]

I have 40lbs of pukani....enough?

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[melosu58]

I don't think so. I have 200 lbs in mine and I see the pods, stars and mini serpants all the time in the rocks but I understand you cant get that much in yours. As much as you can though. There might be times you have to add some pods though.

[Animal-Chin]

Give the fish you have I don't think you have to worry about having pods. What do you want them for? If you have a mandarin goby sure, you have to have them or it will starve but if you don't need them as a food source I don't see the need to worry about it?

[dmolavi]

Actually I was hoping to do a mandarin (not right away...in a couple of months), hence the question.

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[chefbill]

40 with no fuge = 40 with no mandy

[Ryanman]

Originally Posted by chefbill

40 with no fuge = 40 with no mandy

Not true. Tou can train a mandarin to eat reef frenzy. Dont believe me? Ill post two vids.


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[Ryanman]

https://youtu.be/MYWoERqMuMM

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[Mebbid]

Originally Posted by Ryanman

Not true. Tou can train a mandarin to eat reef frenzy. Dont believe me? Ill post two vids.


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It's possible, yes. However they have a habit of sometimes deciding that they no longer want the prepared food. Mandarins very frequently starve to death, even those that were trained onto frozen food.

I did see a neat setup at one point where a person used a petri dish, some mesh, some rigid tubing, and a funnel to make a BBS time release feeder. It was a neat setup, I'll see if I can find it again.

[chefbill]

Right. Anything is possible, but to play the odds with life?

[Sniperhank]

I had a mandarin in my 55 reef for some time. I pumped 2000 pods into it monthly. On top of that, the mandarin began to eat frozen mysis out of the water column like the rest of the fish! This was quite contrary to training them to eat from a feeding station. Then it stopped eating mysis, which can happen more often than you'd think, and it starved after over a year.
Really cool fish, just something that should stay in the ocean.