Amphipods/Copepods

[rjplt23]

I am planning on having a deep sand bed and stocking with amphipods and copepods to supply live food for fish and corals. Any comments on this idea?

 

[brandonberry]

That should be good. That is pretty much the norm.

 

[rjplt23]

With the pods will I still need to feed much others foods such as frozen or pellets?

 

[Brian5000]

I guess it depends of what you're doing exactly.

Unless you have 1-2 small fish in a 100+ gallon tank, your tank won't be able to support enough pods to feed your fish naturally. You're probably going to have to: 1. feed your fish 2. feed your pods (to sustain a large population) 3. keep adding pods (essentially feeding your fish live food).
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grape ape plants

 

[Entacmaea]

I agree with brian- it is probably not feasible unless you have a very large system and very few top tier consumers to rely on the tank pods for food. My last tank was designed around a mandarin, with a similar idea in mind- of providing only live foods. I had a 20 gallon fuge above the tank, draining by gravity, which had 12 peppermint shrimp fed heavily, so they laid eggs about every 2 weeks. I had a huge pod population, and tons of small peppermint shrimp. The mandarin was the only pod predator in the 37g tank, and I still had to feed it...

 

[ChrisRD]

A couple of popular places to get pod "packages":
http://www.ipsf.com/
http://www.inlandaquatics.com/