No pods

D

dogstar

Joined
22 Sep 2008
Posts
501
Reaction score
3
Location
jhb
Hi guys,

I used to have a lot of pods running around my tank about a week and a half ago. Now i dont see any more in my tank. I suspect they have died.

What could be the reason for this?

My tank is still cycling at the moment, but for a long while now, nitrites have been 0 and nitrate <1 and ammonia has not gone above 0.25. ph has been stable.

I have many little snails in the tank, and all these have been fine, and some seem to be growing even.

Any ideas?

Is this part of the cycle?
 
As Thalion noted, do you check at night? what are your other test results? especially Phosphate?
 
yeah i looked at night with a torch. Dont see any of the little buggers at all.

I havent added anything to my tank since i started cycling it. The snails and bristleworms that are in the tank, all come with live rock. They all seem fine, its just the pods that have all seem to have died.
 
I havent got a phos test kit. But i have been running aquamedic Antiphos FE in the tank since i started the cycle. Its sitting in a stocking in the return chamber of my sump.
 
dogstar said:
yeah i looked at night with a torch. Dont see any of the little buggers at all.

I havent added anything to my tank since i started cycling it. The snails and bristleworms that are in the tank, all come with live rock. They all seem fine, its just the pods that have all seem to have died.
Click to expand...

It is possible the pods have eaten up all the food, i'm sure the colony will grow again when there are fish in the tank.
 
Okay. So there is nothing i should be doing then, this can be seen as part of the cycle?

Lol, nobody told me to feed the little guys.
 
Mike said:
It is possible the pods have eaten up all the food, i'm sure the colony will grow again when there are fish in the tank.
Click to expand...

If they all died, how does the colony get started again (once the fish come)?
 
dogstar said:
Okay. So there is nothing i should be doing then, this can be seen as part of the cycle?

Lol, nobody told me to feed the little guys.
Click to expand...

No need, i doubt there is food available for pods anyway, but do check your perams, SG, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, temp and PH and post them up, also try to keep the temp and SG as stable as poss
 
I was testing every second day, but stopped because recently i have just not seen the ammonia move down. It has been 0.25 since 23rd October. Everything else was stable as below

When i last tested the readings were something like this

SG 1.025
Temp 27
Nitirites 0
nitrates <1
Ammonia 0.25
ph 8.2
Kh 6/7
 
IF you REALLY want to see pods again - put a LITTLE bit of fish food (flakes or pellets) into the tank..... just a little bit.... about 2 days later you will see quite a few pods again....

As Mike has said - they have MOST likely eaten up all the food, and have either gone deep into the live rock in search of food, or have died off..... their spores still stay in the tank. They will breed again once there is enough food in the tank again.
 
All looks ok, what test kit are you using, sometimes the tests don't actually register zero, so the ammonia test may not be able to tell you it is ok, try a different kit, or ask a local reefer/lfs to test for you, just to be sure.
 
i really want to see them again - because otherwise the tank is a bit bare, they provide some entertainment whilst the tank is cycling.

Will try putting some flakes in there and will see what happends.
 
dogstar said:
i really want to see them again - because otherwise the tank is a bit bare, they provide some entertainment whilst the tank is cycling.

Will try putting some flakes in there and will see what happends.
Click to expand...

Put a cockle of similar shellfish scrap in there, they like deadstuff:)
 
dogstar said:
Lol, nobody told me to feed the little guys.
Click to expand...

:lol::lol: funny

I used to feed mine a little with marine pellets. Was quite cute to see them "fight" over the pellets.
 
Mike said:
All looks ok, what test kit are you using, sometimes the tests don't actually register zero, so the ammonia test may not be able to tell you it is ok, try a different kit, or ask a local reefer/lfs to test for you, just to be sure.
Click to expand...

Everything except the ammonia is tested on TM kits. The ammonia is on a red sea kit. I did test it at the lfs last week saturday, and it read 0.1, so the ammonia was still too high anyways.

I am going back to the lfs on saturday to check the ammonia again. If its 0 then i want to start with some clean up crew, snails and hermits.
 
dogstar said:
I am trying to get the ammonia down to zero, by adding some deadstuff, am i not going to spike the ammonia?
Click to expand...

You will only need a tiny bit and giving the ammonia a kick it may help to increase the beneficial bacteria to actually reduce it
 
Dogstar - you will have s TINY ammonia spike - nothing to worry about. The amount of food that you will / SHOULD be adding should be so small - that the ammonia levels will be too much diluted in the amount of water.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom