HIGH QUALITY PODS WITHOUT THE PRICE. HAND BOTTLED THE MORNING THEY SHIP. | CopepodsForSale.com

• Every 32oz 5-Species Reef Blend ships free with 8,000 to 10,000+ live pods across five species (Tisbe, Tigriopus, Apocyclops, Oithona, Euterpina). I check counts under the microscope from every batch before anything leaves.
• I think it's the best pods per dollar you can buy. Don't take my word for it: the price is on the site, the count is right above. Divide one by the other, then do the same with the last bottle you bought anywhere else.
• Subscribe & Save takes another 17.5% off, whatever size tank you run.

Tyguy said:

Hey I’m ordering some for my 20 probably today, any tips for trying to culter some of my own? Also do you think if I let my tank get to around the one year mark with weekly dosing of pods?

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CopepodsForSale said:

Happy to help with both!

On culturing your own, it is genuinely easy and the setup is minimal. A container of a gallon or more, a slow air line with no airstone, phyto to feed them, and that is about it. No light needed, no filter, room temperature is fine. A clear plastic tub or a wide mouth jar both work. It can get a bit more complex with scale but thats the basic idea.

The rhythm is the whole game. Dose phyto until the water is faintly tinted, then wait until it clears before feeding again. Clear means they have eaten it all. Feeding on a fixed schedule regardless of whether the last dose cleared is the single most common way people crash a culture, since uneaten phyto rots and ammonia builds fast in a small volume.

Harvest regularly once it is going. That keeps it in fast growth mode rather than letting it hit its ceiling and stall, and topping back up with fresh saltwater each time doubles as a water change.

And run a second small backup culture once the first is established. Everyone crashes one eventually trust me haha, and a backup turns that into a week rather than starting over.

On your second question, I think you are asking whether a year of weekly dosing gets you a self sustaining population. Honest answer is that it depends far less on time and far more on what is eating them.

If you have fish actively hunting pods, particularly wrasses or a mandarin, they will graze the display population faster than it can breed no matter how long you keep dosing. A year of weekly dosing in that situation just means a year of feeding your fish rather than building anything.

What actually gets you a self sustaining population is somewhere protected for them to breed where nothing can reach them. A refugium with chaeto is the best version, or pod hotels if you have no sump space. Once you have that, the population sustains itself and spills into the display continuously, and you stop needing to dose at all.

So the answer to your question is really about refuge rather than time. Tell me what is in your 20 and whether you have any sump or fuge space and I will tell you honestly what is achievable.

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CopepodsForSale said:

Happy to help with both!

On culturing your own, it is genuinely easy and the setup is minimal. A container of a gallon or more, a slow air line with no airstone, phyto to feed them, and that is about it. No light needed, no filter, room temperature is fine. A clear plastic tub or a wide mouth jar both work. It can get a bit more complex with scale but thats the basic idea.

The rhythm is the whole game. Dose phyto until the water is faintly tinted, then wait until it clears before feeding again. Clear means they have eaten it all. Feeding on a fixed schedule regardless of whether the last dose cleared is the single most common way people crash a culture, since uneaten phyto rots and ammonia builds fast in a small volume.

Harvest regularly once it is going. That keeps it in fast growth mode rather than letting it hit its ceiling and stall, and topping back up with fresh saltwater each time doubles as a water change.

And run a second small backup culture once the first is established. Everyone crashes one eventually trust me haha, and a backup turns that into a week rather than starting over.

On your second question, I think you are asking whether a year of weekly dosing gets you a self sustaining population. Honest answer is that it depends far less on time and far more on what is eating them.

If you have fish actively hunting pods, particularly wrasses or a mandarin, they will graze the display population faster than it can breed no matter how long you keep dosing. A year of weekly dosing in that situation just means a year of feeding your fish rather than building anything.

What actually gets you a self sustaining population is somewhere protected for them to breed where nothing can reach them. A refugium with chaeto is the best version, or pod hotels if you have no sump space. Once you have that, the population sustains itself and spills into the display continuously, and you stop needing to dose at all.

So the answer to your question is really about refuge rather than time. Tell me what is in your 20 and whether you have any sump or fuge space and I will tell you honestly what is achievable.

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CopepodsForSale said:

View attachment 60494

HIGH QUALITY PODS WITHOUT THE PRICE. HAND BOTTLED THE MORNING THEY SHIP. | CopepodsForSale.com

Hey reefers, Ricky here from Copepodsforsale.com!

We're a small family business. Every pod and every drop of phyto is cultured in house, and every bottle is hand filled the morning it ships. Nothing sits in a warehouse. It's also me personally answering the messages, so if you've ever emailed at 2am and gotten a reply, that wasn't an autoresponder.

High quality pods without the price. That's the whole pitch. Here's the math behind it:

• Every 32oz 5-Species Reef Blend ships free with 8,000 to 10,000+ live pods across five species (Tisbe, Tigriopus, Apocyclops, Oithona, Euterpina). I check counts under the microscope from every batch before anything leaves.
• I think it's the best pods per dollar you can buy. Don't take my word for it: the price is on the site, the count is right above. Divide one by the other, then do the same with the last bottle you bought anywhere else.
• Subscribe & Save takes another 17.5% off, whatever size tank you run.

About mandarins: somewhere along the way "mandarins are expensive to keep" became accepted wisdom in this hobby. Run the numbers above and it stops being true. (Yes, the mandarin "goby" is technically a dragonet. It still eats like a teenager.)

New tank, no refugium, or a skinny rescue? Front-load: start with the Mandarin Mix or the 3-Bottle Set + Phyto. That's the set a member here posted about in my last thread ("came in great").

Why this week: the cultures are the densest they've ever been and the phyto is so dark we can barely thin it. Bottles ship swimming in that live phyto, so your pods arrive moving and ready to hunt, not starved from a week on a shelf.

Summer shipping: insulated packing with a cool pack matched to your forecast is available on every order, and 100% live arrival is on me either way. Anything shows up not swimming, I replace it, no hassle.

Shop: copepodsforsale.com | Subscribe & Save 17.5% | CPP10 for 10% off a one-time order

Wondering if your tank is ready for a mandarin? Drop the tank size below and I'll give you an honest answer. Fair warning: sometimes the honest answer is "don't buy pods yet." I'd rather talk you out of a bottle than replace a starved fish. Thank you for being the best part of this hobby always!

Ricky

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Savery said:

Are you NJ or NY based? If not where do you ship from? Id love to pick up a big order

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