I would like to get a mandarin for my tank. I know they need pods. My tank has some pods in it but I dont know to what extent. I know you can buy them. If I buy pods do I just put them in my tank or in the sump or what? Thoughts?
How much live rock do you have? How old is your tank?
Most say mandarins could use at least a 6 month old tank with plenty of rock to survive the long term. Most wont be hand fed or eat tiger pods (mostly because tiger pods don’t last long in the water). So you need to rely on the reproduction of natural pods in your rock and the mandarin will devastate them so you need plenty of rock to keep them breeding.
I have 130 gallons of water with 160 lbs of rock and my mandarin is fat and happy and I never feed him.
I originally had a 55 gal tank set up since August then last week I upgraded it to a 90 gal that I bought off of a member from here. There is about 100 lbs of rock maybe a little more. Most of the rock came with the tank. I believe the rock has been in his tank for several years.
I think people have had some luck with the captive raised ones… they come at about 3x’s the price though.
have you looked at your tank after a couple hours of lights out with a small flashlight? if you have larger types of pods they should be quite visible scurrying about. that would be worth a look. And make sure the fish you buy doesn’t look too skinny… if they sit at the lfs for too long they starve easily from lack of live food and never start eating again.
very cool fish :
:
FWIW, scooter blennies can sometimes be a little hardier and come in a variety of colors, I know they arent AS colorful but kind of the same fish. Also if you go to reefs2go.com they sell pod packs that wouldnt be a bad idea to get before hand and introduce them to the tank before or as you introduce the fish to the tank.
Good luck with whatever choice you make. ::
If you had a refugium that would give you a much better success rate. But I have also successfully had mandarins in a 12g and 20g and 75g tank. with no fuge it is important to find spots to pile up rubble rock that the mandarin can not get to so you have a breeding zone for the copepods. Also at one point with one of my pig mandarins I had to put a chunk of Chaeto in the tank to help with breeding and I even tried breeding copepods in a seperate tank with just cheato and a grow light that worked out very well for a while.
Check the tank when the lights are out with a little flashlight thats not to bright and look for the little pods. They look like small specks in the tank. You can also entice there feeding and breeding by adding a little bit of live phytoplankton in the tank since that is a food source for the copepods and many other things.
Be very careful if you ever go for more then 1 mandarin in a tank. They do get pretty nasty with each other.
I tried the ORA mandarin with no success with it eating anything they claimed it would eat. It went right to copepods. The ORA did not seem to eat as much as the regular $25 mandarin. I had to be careful with the wildcaught one cause it would eat and eat til all copepods were depleted and sometimes I had to restock.
Thanks for the tips! I currently have a sump and was thinking of making it into a refuge. Just need to figure out how. I will build up a spot with rocks for the pods to live in so the mandarin cant get to them all. I looked last night with a flashlight about half hour after lights went out and only saw a handful of them. So I will most likely buy some pods and put them into the tank. How long after placing the pods in the tank should I wait to buy the mandarin ? How many pods should I buy?
Good reading here:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-09/fish/index.php
Thanks for the links! I read them and I think I am going to give it a shot after I make a few changes. I am going to go ahead and set up a refuge and buy some pods then get a mandarin after that. It’s going to be bit more challenging than the other fish but I think I am up for it.
[quote=“nerak, post:9, topic:6380”]
It’s going to be bit more challenging than the other fish but I think I am up for it. [/quote]
You’re already way ahead of the game… researching before a purchase…
priceless!
::