Mandarin owners

[ralph atl]

DawgFace;938076 wrote: Copepods eat microalgae and there for do not require anything but a relatively clean take in which microalgae can flourish.

Honestly in this situation more than likely had you have bought copepods your Mandarin may have lived. Typically Mandarins perish in this manner; owner believes they have the tank requirements met. They don't and over time the Mandarin depletes the food source and eventually dies.

Declanisadog;937931 wrote: I waited until I started to constantly see pods on the rocks and glass before i added mine. Within a month, i started never seeing them. After that I started to add them monthly just to be on the safe side. I've kept mine for a little over three years, and he eats frozen now.

DawgFace;938083 wrote: That's a very proactive approach and one that people fail to see.

Very simply after lights out for an hour or more in a dark room take a flashlight and scan the tank. You should literally see thousands of copepods scattering in the sudden light. Periodically, do the same after you've have the Mandarin. If at any point you see a depletion you either need to buy food or ideally rehome until you have enough to sustain.

great stuff, but will they listen? Time will tell...

 

[bulkrate]

I've had a little red female splendidus in my 9-gallon cube since December. The process of training the fish onto frozen/pellets made my tank into a hair algae forest (currently on the mend as I back the amount of food down to how much it will eat at a given time & improve my aim with the food pipette). Over the last 6 weeks she's been slowly but steadily gaining weight. I feed an alternating mix of Larry's Reef Frenzy, Nutramar and New Life Spectrum .5mm small fish formula pellets.

The key to keeping one in small tanks is daily TARGET feeding AND monthly pod supplements - the Coral Conservancy's bottled live copepod mix has been literally a lifesaver for this fish... at some point I wish I'd gotten a pod culture running prior to getting the mandarin. But the advantage to the nano tank (provided you OK with it being pretty much the only fish in the tank) is that you get to see it often.

In a bigger tank? I imagine a sump packed w/ macroalgae would act as a decent copepod breeding locale - every now any then grab clump of macro & swish it around in the main tank to dose a population for grazing. Or in a much bigger tank just a lot of very porous rock stacked in little rubble piles should do the trick.

I still think you're better off either holding out for a trained (or investing the time into training) a dragonet onto prepared foods - both to improve the health of the fish long-term and as a safeguard against a copepod population crash. I had my tank up for two years before adding the mandarin, and saw plenty of boom/bust cycles wrt. the number of pods crawling on the glass with no apparent rhyme or reason.

 

[declanisadog]

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[jennm]

In addition to all that has been said already, be mindful of other tankmates that may compete with the Mandarin for those pods. Wrasses, for example, will pick a tank clean of pods, even though they also eat prepared foods.

Make careful stocking choices all around to give a Mandarin the best chance.

Jenn

 

[fishtank]

I appreciate all the feedback and suggestions! I like good forums like this where members a glad to help out. Definitely have considered other members and thought about a smaller wrass for a while but I do not think that is a route I will be going. At this point I think I am settled on Yellow Watchmen Goby, 2 Firefish, 2 clowns and a flame angel. CUC yet to be researched but that for another thread.

 

[kstyle13]

I love my Yellow watchman and I love my firefish. I only have one however. Maybe try looking at some of blenny family. J they stay fairly active but are similar in shape and size to the gobys...