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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Copepod question

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29 Mar 2016 22:01 #1 by Lakes1985 (David Ward)
Hi, Just wondering if anybody has any experience keeping copepods in there tanks. Iv a red scooter dragonette and he eats them and was wondering what i woild need to keep a ready supply in my tank ? Can I just add them to my tank or do I need to set up a refugium area in my tank with chaeto algae.?
Cheers,
David

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30 Mar 2016 06:56 #2 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
Depends on your setup, more area like a refugium dita make it easier but the easiest way is having enough live Rock for him to eat off and for the copepods to reproduce.

I have a red scooter blenny in my smaller tank, 86 litres with 20kgs of live Rock and you can see them crawl on the glass lol.

I have a female mandarin in my 136 litre with 35kgs of live Rock and they are harder to keep in smaller tanks. I'm going to have 41.1kgs of rock curing this weekend in my 5ft and all rock from other tanks going in so will make nearly 100kgs lol. Want a male mandarin for my female. Alot harder to keep, tried in my 136 but failed, but he had a worm.

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30 Mar 2016 19:14 #3 by Lakes1985 (David Ward)
Cool iv approx about maybe 20kg of live rock in mine and it's 280 including sump so probably not enough rock or is it?
Are you planning on mating your mandarin then? That sounds cool

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30 Mar 2016 23:25 #4 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
No not planning on mating the mandarins as they are very difficult to breed, they have a certain "Dance" they need to do to mate and supposed to need at least 1 meter tank depth in order to preform it.

If you could get other rock you could just put it in your sump and it would be an easy place for copepods to populate without the fishes eating them. Remember even though they eat mainly copepods you can get them to eat frozen as well. My red scooter and my manadrin both eat mysis and brine.

You can always give them lobster egg but beware that they are tiny and hold alot of nutrients so if they are not eaten can cause spikes in nitrates. Use cautiously.

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31 Mar 2016 18:35 #5 by Lakes1985 (David Ward)
Ya I feed them frozen aswel but just thought it would be handier having a ready supply living in the tank. Don't know if I'd like the look of much more rock in my tank to be honest, not much space left on the bottom and a bit afraid of building much higher

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31 Mar 2016 22:42 #6 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
Well if hes taking frozen i wouldnt worry about it. If you can see copepods or amino's walking along the rock or glass an night, you dont have an issue. If you dont see them maybe buy a bag or two and seed the tank, only at night with pumps off for awhile and let them get themselves into your current rock. I done that for a few months, a bag or two a month and ive got millions lol.

In my larger thank i have cardinals that love copepods, clowns will eat them in the water, mandarin off the rock, and wrasses will eat them too. and every night i see them all over rocka and glass.

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