Maintaining Pods in a Saltwater Aquarium

Maintaining Pods in a Saltwater Aquarium

Have you ever wanted to get a Mandarin Goby or any other Goby for that matter? I bet you heard/read they are hard to keep alive or heard they have a short life span in aquariums. The reason for that is lack of pods, Amphipods and Copepods.

Copepods are a group of small crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. Many species are planktonic, but more are benthic, and some continental species may live in limno-terrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests, bogs, springs, ephemeral ponds and puddles, damp moss, or water-filled recesses (phytotelmata) of plants such as bromeliads and pitcher plants. Many live underground in marine and freshwater caves, sinkholes, or stream beds. Some copepods are parasitic[1] and attach themselves to fish, sharks, marine mammals, and many kinds of invertebrates such as molluscs, tunicates, or corals.

Amphipoda (amphipods) is an order of animals that includes over 7000 described species of small, shrimp-like crustaceans.

Most amphipods are marine; although a small number of species are limnic or terrestrial. Marine amphipods may be pelagic (living in the water column) or benthic (living on the ocean bottom). Pelagic amphipods are eaten by seabirds, fish, and marine mammals. Terrestrial amphipods such as sand fleas can often be seen amongst sand and pebbles or on beaches.

While some Amphipods and Copepods can be parasitic, most are not, and are on the lower end of the chain. A lot of the Gobie's and Blennies feed on pod's as a main part of the food source. If their belly area is not fat/swollen to the naked eye, then they are not eating as much as the should which can lead to their demise.

How do you know if you have pod's or not?