If you have copepods in your refugium, I need your advice.
I have never been able to establish a population of copepods in mine.
My tank is 2 years old and there were lots of copepods in the main tank early on before I got fish. It seems reasonable not to have lots of pods in the main tank, but despite my best efforts I can't seem to get a self-supporting population of them in the fuge.
In fact I don't see any and I am very confident that I can identify them if they are there. There are lots of tiny brittle stars in there though.
I have tried stocking the fuge with purchased bottles of trigger pods. Of course they flowed right up to the main tank where I'm sure my mandarin feasted on them.
I even once created a "fuge within a fuge" by isolating the pods in a net breeder. The netting on the breeder allowed them to escape, so I got some 100 micron mesh from a biologist friend and sewed a new net and added more. This mesh was too fine for adults at least to escape.
Still, all gone within days. It is a mystery.
What could be going wrong?
