Questions about my copepod tank.

[suzimcmullen]

I set up a 5 gallon coffee table tank as a copepod tank. It has a few pounds of live rock in it, a starter culture of 3 species of copepods and a bunch of sea lettuce a long with whatever critters hitched on the lettuce and live rock.

Here's my possible problem... I have dwarf seahorses that are eating enriched 2 day old artemia. But my decapsulated brine eggs went bad. Actually, they seemed bad when I bought them. Out of desperation I decided to use my copepod tank to hatch out regular brine eggs. I was out of airstones and out of counterspace.

So now I'm wondering what to do about all the hatched out brine eggshells. Will they break down in the system? Will the copepods eat them when they break down? Should I add some other critters to this tank like mini stars and hermit crabs? There are a lot of sediments in the bottom of this tank, broken down plants that was in there and not doing so well, detritus from the rocks etc. I have no idea how to clean the tank or if I even should since I don't want to lose my copepods. I know I've seen some various bugs and amphipods in the tank. I also see a LOT of very fast moving bugs in there that are definitely not brine and very small so they are probably the copepods.

I don't want to use any of the water in my other tanks until I'm sure there are no longer in tact brine eggs that could harm my fish or seahorses. I can sit on the tank for months no problem.

Have I done a really stupid thing?!

Suzi

[wiscsaltwater]

syphonn the crap out with a gravel cleaner, youll lose some copepods but they will recover fast.