Pod farm?

[Coolaid]

So, I have been thinking about setting up a small maybe 5 gallon tank with Live rock rubble, and some macro algae to start up a pod farm.. I have a ton of what i believe to be Amphipods (visable to the unaided eye) in the chambers of my AIO nano. but I would like to get a few of the mail order jar of pod things I see around. I am looking at Tribse and other "crawling" type pods to eventually seed my 90 gallon, and in the distant future eventually keep a mandarin fed and happy.

I've read that they aren't too fond of free swimming type pods.. While I would be interested in as much bio diversity as I can get and would welcome any and all veriety of good pods, that is the main reason for it.

I am debating on a fuge when i get the 90 project under way.. It will be using a 20 long sump. I have read differing opinions on weather having a fuge chamber in the 20 long is even doing anything to help the tank.. I think I want to do it anyway, and eventually use the farm to seed the fuge area. I am also thinking I would keep the farm tank up for extra supply anyway.. who knows at this stage..

Does anyone have experience with raising pods? Any tips as to a better method then the one I have planned? Is it advisable to skip the fuge in a 20 long sump? I'm also debating implementing an algae scrubber at some point as well for additional biological filtration.

This 90 gallon tank will be a very slow project.. I already have the tank, stand and sump tank. It may start out as fish only with live rock, and then as lighting allows down the road I would move into a reef setup.

Thanks for the help - Rob

 

[mnat]

We have cultred tiger pods and it was pretty easy. I think your 5g pod farm sounds like a good idea, just make sure your strains of pods are compatible and won't eat each other. Also figure out what they do eat so they just don't starve to death in there. You don't need much, depending on the strain, to keep the culture going. Realize that at some point all cultures will crash so you will have to re populate every now and again.

As far as the fuge goes, we used HOB fuges for a long time and quite liked them even though they were small. Any fuge area in a tank where pods and whatnot can breed and also naughty things can go is always helpful.