Advice: Time for a mandarin yet?

DRC Archive General Saltwater Discussion
1

So, the tank has been up for about 5 months now. I have a pretty good refugium set up that seems to always be full of all kinds of little critters scurrying around when the lights are off, and my display tank seems to have amphipods and other pods galore regardless of the lights being on or off. At what point do you all think that my tank would be ready for a mandarin?

I have a 55 gallon AGA with home made acrylic sump that holds approximate 20-25 gallons. In the sump is about an 8 gallon area that is my refugium with sand, chaeto grass, caulerpa, and about 4 lbs of live rock. In my display tank I have about 45lbs of live rock.

2

Try to find a mandarin at a LFS and see if it will take prepared foods. Remember that even if you have plenty of pods for food, the pod population in your tank is going to take a serious hit. So all of the beneficial scavenging that these guys do will be reduced along with their population. If it were me, I’d probably wait a while longer, or until I found a mandarin that would eat prepared food.

3

Yeah, was kind of figuring that. Maybe BJ will take a look and see if he has ever seen one come through The Fish Bowl that eats prepared food.

4

you could always buy pods, they are liek 25$ for a whole bottle full!!

5

I was looking around the internet trying to find someone that was talking about how fast they reproduce, and if there was anything that you could supplement with that may help amphi- and copepods reproduce faster. But I wasn’t able to find anything. So I also looked at this as maybe a test to see how my tank could hold up and whether or not my refugium is a good breeding ground for them. But, I dont really like the idea of putting a fish in a situation where it could die because of starvation… so we will see.

6

i’ve always heard you should have at least 75lbs of rock per mandarin in a 6 month mature tank, if you can find one that takes prepared foods that would be great, i want one some time soon as well, i have 155lbs of rock in my 75gallon.

my understanding is that the bottled tiggerpods arent the same as copepods but i’ll have to read up on that first im not sure how true that is.

7

I have two males that both eat frozen. Someone else wanted him but its been over 3 weeks and he still hasnt picked him up. Right now he is in my fuge, a little on the skinny side but its frozen bloodworm, mysis, and brine. If your interested lmk.

8

jump on that billy! shawn pretty much always has nice stuff, and a mandarin eating frozen is worth his weight in pods… (sorry, had to do it!!) lol

9

[quote=“logans_daddy, post:7, topic:1944”]
I have two males that both eat frozen. Someone else wanted him but its been over 3 weeks and he still hasnt picked him up. Right now he is in my fuge, a little on the skinny side but its frozen bloodworm, mysis, and brine. If your interested lmk.[/quote]

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