No pods, but a bit of cyano bacteria... I have not harvest any algae since I started it about 3-4 months ago... I've just brushed it with a toothbrush every other day to prevent the cyano to build up and to remove any detrius on the bottom. I have both bubbles and water flow in one of the chambers and only waterflow in the other two... The one with the bubbles has just a little bit more algae around the top compared to the other two chambers. I have no algae in the display but I have a lot of algae eating fishes... (I will soon try to take a video of the scrubber)...