ok so i have tons of them and ive been doing some research for a fish that i can keep that will eat them cause well ive got a lot. ive got a lot of copepods but the ones i talking about in particular are the amphipods. they are all over my rocks and sand bed. its not plague status but you know. so what eats em, i know scooter blennys and a mandarin but im def not big enough or expirenced for a mandarin. ohh yea and ive only got 5.5 gallons to work with. i know pretty damn small. maybe its not even a fish i should be looking for maybe its something else. anyone got any suggestions?
if you put some kind of netting over the tank you can go with a wrasse maybe. lots of color and movement for such a small fish.
what are the dimention on the tank?
Lots of pods could mean there is lots of extra food in the tank. What fish do you have in the tank currently?
nope no fish in the tank, just a peppermint shrimp. he gets 1 flake every couple days.
[quote=“bz350, post:2, topic:2389”]
if you put some kind of netting over the tank you can go with a wrasse maybe. lots of color and movement for such a small fish.
what are the dimention on the tank?[/quote]
really a wrasse i wouldve thought my tank is too small. the dims are 18L X 8"W x 10"H
I think the question is not what eats pods, but what will fit in your tank. An animal large enough to eat adult amiphods which can survive in a tank that small will be hard to find. One that will thrive and live a good life… best of luck.
If you would really like to place a fish in there I would look into very small gobies.
Does your tank have an open top or lid? What type of lighting? How stable is the temperature?
i know seriously, perils of starting with such a small tank lol. but yea im not hell bent on getting a fish i was merley just wondering. but yea tanks temp is usually stable. i think if i were to get a fish it’d prob be a clown goby or the like.
i guess ill just deal with the pods. i mean they are a good living thing afterall.
You can get a scooter blenny, just get a small one, and give him places to hide… you can find them around .5"
DONT GET A SCOOTER BLENNY[/size]
[quote=“Marchingbandjs, post:7, topic:2389”]
You can get a scooter blenny, just get a small one, and give him places to hide… you can find them around .5"[/quote]
NO
Careful in your recommendations John until you get a bit more experience under your belt. 
It would be better if your post read, “What about a scooter blenny? I’ve never kept one, and don’t know if they would be ok in that small of a tank, but I heard they eat podsâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ. Don’t get me wrong I’m not yelling, but I know giving advice like this before you are ready could steer a new hobbyist into a poor decision.
These animals only eat small pods. In a tank this size it will eat every small pod in the tank in a 12 hour time span. After that it will just start to starve. Even if you wanted to attempt to train it to eat frozen you would have to dump a large quantity of food in the tank to train it. Even if you were able to train it the fish would require food frequently enough that it would be VERY difficult to maintain even decent water quality. Even if by a miracle you made it through all this the animal would outgrow the tank in my opinion.
Mein slecht. For some reason i thought he had a 25g tank???.. and it goes to prove that not everything you read on other forums is true…
sorry for leading you in the wrong direction, i will be more careful with my responses.
even then u wouldnt be able to keep one. trust me ive tried with no sucess. ive kept a mandarin for 4+ months and even thought it looked good it still died. they always end up dying from starvation.
I know that people had trouble with manderins, but i thought people had better success with scooter blennys. and im pretty sure that comment just made me sound like more of a retard because aren’t they from the same family
Didn’t make you sound like a retard at all. Just simply trying to share some info you had heard in the past to help out a fellow reefer. Always have to remember what complex micro environments we are dealing with and that when you talk about things it is best to discuss them like a scientist proposing theories and not stating facts unless you are positive.
Many times over I propose people read up on certain things rather then give them specific advice. Just steer people into a certain direction. You’ll quickly learn how to phrase things if you are going to study chemistry as an undergrad. Pretty much just have to cover your ___ because you never know how an animal is going to act and all the specifics with water chemistry in every possible situation.
Kdino Ocean, Reefs, and Aquariums raise several species of gobies which might be suiteable for your small aquarium. I forget the name of one of their tiny species, but have seen them at both ECA and DPA.
[quote=“bz350, post:10, topic:2389”]
even then u wouldnt be able to keep one. trust me ive tried with no sucess. ive kept a mandarin for 4+ months and even thought it looked good it still died. they always end up dying from starvation.[/quote]
This was very true for years. I remember when people gave the advice to avoid Mandarins because they will eventually starve in anything except a 150+ gallon system. It was considered cruel to own them.
Over the past couple of years people have come up with several methods of training fish to eat other foods. It’s actually very possible to own Mandarins now and keep them fat and healthy for years. If browse the forums, you’ll see lots of threads on how people train finicky eaters to eat the foods we chose to feed them. The secret is that you need to know the fish’s dietary needs from day 1, and begin training it to eat what you want from day 1 in a small, controlled environment.
Ento Reef is currently raising a pair of polka dotted fish that feed almost exclusively on Acropora corals. You might want to take a look at how she’s already trained them to eat frozen foods if you ever wanted to revisit the Mandarin idea.
My point is, you can have a Mandarin if you want one. You just need to train it for about a week when you first get it before you introduce it to your tank! (Just to clarify, bz350 can have one not Kdino!)
Kdino, we keep a small goby in our 3gal tank, he’s always got a great fat belly. I’ll see if I can find the name of it for you. I assume he eats pods as I don’t usually see them in the tank.
:TWOCENTS
John - scooters are just as difficult as mandarins IMO. if im not mistaken, they are both dragonets and closely related though i could be wrong.
Brett - mandarins can be kept sucessfully. i had my first one as a newb for over three years. i trained my current one to eat frozen and has been in my nano for for probably 9-10 months. i also bought one from Bellamy in the summer that had to be “retrained” to eat frozen ;D Cablereef here on the boards has it now and its HUGE in his 125g.
Jon - VERY good point about the pollution associated with training a fish. furthermore, even when you get it trained they are not aggressive eaters and you will have to overfeed to give them a chance to eat. they are very perculiar eaters.
One thing i will say, along the lines of Brett’s and RCA’s comments, is that i feel that people overlook how difficult these fish are. Its a difficult fish that should be kept by advanced hobbyiests that fully understand the needs of this fish and are willing to do the things necessary to ensure their survival. I think there are too many cases where someone will say “mandarins are easy, ive had mine for _ months” and give the impression that the difficulty associated with these fish is a myth, only to have the fish eventually die like Brett described. They can last for months and still die from issues realted to insufficient diets. For as long as ive had mine, he still is on the thin side and im acutally moving him to my 265g this weekend because of the issues Jon hinted at. I have to put so much food in my 34g since i moved my cardinals into the tank just to give him a chance to eat that its affecting my NO3 levels. It sucks, because i know he will get lost in such a big tank, but i know its for the best.
i didnt mention the training part kuz i figured it would be to much trouble for a nub. i realise people can keep them in smaller then 150 gallon tanks but it can be trouble getting then to accept frozen food. im soure kdino does not want to dump 3 cubes in 3 time a day for a week( idk how much food you would use).
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:15, topic:2389”]
:TWOCENTS
Jon - VERY good point about the pollution associated with training a fish. furthermore, even when you get it trained they are not aggressive eaters and you will have to overfeed to give them a chance to eat. they are very perculiar eaters.
One thing i will say, along the lines of Brett’s and RCA’s comments, is that i feel that people overlook how difficult these fish are. Its a difficult fish that should be kept by advanced hobbyiests that fully understand the needs of this fish and are willing to do the things necessary to ensure their survival. I think there are too many cases where someone will say “mandarins are easy, ive had mine for _ months” and give the impression that the difficulty associated with these fish is a myth, only to have the fish eventually die like Brett described.[/quote]
Very good points Shawn. The last thing I want is to have people thinking that orange spotted file fish are easy to keep. I was doing 25-30% water changes every 3 days just to keep up with the pollution. I am now still doing 20% a week to keep nitrates at 5ppm. I feed these guys 3-4 times a day. I am sure mandarines and scooters would require similar care if kept in a smaller tank.