She is starving but surviving the stomach is concaved. I isolated her into a little container thats floating in the tank with food in it. I would assume this would be 1 way to train them but not sure. I do not buy copepods anymore since I have a tank setup just for them and the nitrates are still at 0 and that tank has been up since my g/f bought the mandarin and we found out how hard they really are to care for.
Can you see tons of pods in your fuge? You do have a fuge btw a fuge is a refuge from predation. In this case the predation is your mandarin eating pods and your pods are in need of an area they can go for refuge(a refugium). If you don’t see tons of pods in your system, you definitely should be buying some or giving up the fish if you are worried it isn’t going to make it. Sometimes you have to love an animal enough to know it is best to let it go and give it to someone that can give it a better home.
I don’t think isolating her/him will help(sure it’s a her?). These are very shy sensitive fish. They are the first to hit the deck when you walk by or put your hand in the tank or if the other fish in the tank swim too fast. You could say they are a bit nervous or finicky and placing them in a small container to eat will probably stress them more then help. Placing food in small container in the tank, they can swim into and no one else may help them get food and keep the others away, but they need to swim in on their own terms to be comfortable enough to eat. Not exactly sure what you are doing, but just some thoughts on what you said.
A starving Mandarin could be there one day and gone the next. You won’t find it swimming in the front of the tank holding it’s stomach and pointing towards its mouth. If it is really skinny and not getting better you need to do something.
Good luck.
I only have a sump on the tank she is in. I did setup another tank separate from the main completely to breed copepods.
That is why I have live rock rubble in nets that I swap out in the 2 tanks once a week to try and keep pod levels up and I also try to feed frozen cyclopeze.
She does not have the dorsal fin like the males do. We did have a male blue mandarin but he did not last long he got his head stuck in one of the live rocks and snake like shaped heads do no do well in tight spots…
She is very friendly in the tank she goes around all over and no one bothers her and she watches me and comes to the front when she sees me alot.
But you have chaeto in your sump with a light on it?
Do you see pods in your copepods breading tank? Ever see any in the aquarium system including in the sump?
I need to get a small led light for the side of the sump still. I deff can see pods/mysis in the pod tank. I feed that tank phytoplankton atleast once a day. I am trying the flying fish eggs now just got them. Hoping for the best if we can’t get her to look better I might take Craig up on his offer. But my g/f really does not want to give up just yet…
Is their any space around the tank you could add another tank plumbed in so you can create a chained in larger fuge? You may want to read up on dark fuges as well. Prehaps build one out of a TLF Phosban 550 reactor set on the side of the tank, so it gets some light to grow some algae the pods will grow off of.
Were you meaning to say that the 10g was half filled? If so why not do a water change on the mandarins tank and put it in that 10g and fill it to the top. Large more stable tank is more likely to grow pods.
All of these things take a long time. Growing out pods takes time. They are fairly prolific, but it isn’t likely that even during the prefect conditions that any new/additional set up will get filled with pods in a week.
Do you monitor your Ca, Alk, Mg, and pH(with digital probe) in the display tank? Having stable water chemistry dramatically boosts the health and population size of your macrofauna.
I do need to get a ph probe and alk tests still. I usually test phosphates,nitrates,calcium,hardness,mag. All of my levels have stayed stable since the tank has been up. I also forgot to mention I do have a co2 scrubber on the skimmer that Rosti had. Where the tank is I don’t really have room to add another tank for the fuge but if worse comes to worse I can find a way to make one fit near the tank. I still need to research on a proper way to make it and if need still use a sump :s I have a spare 20long just sitting atm. (skimmer is external c-skim1800)
I personally wouldn’t bother testing phosphates. If you see cyano in the tank in an area that isn’t stagnant then you have a lot of phosphates. If you feed fish in the tank then you have some phosphates and should be removing them in some form or another. Water changes may be enough if you aren’t too worried about keeping cyano and algae down to nothing or aren’t trying to make the colors in your corals look better. I run phosphate removal media all the time on my aquariums and never bother testing even though I have a digital tester. Just my opinion.
Keep a close eye on the fish and use your best judgement. Best of luck.