29 gallon stocking help

[tthemadd1]

I wouldn't recommend a mandarin they can be trained to eat frozen but many don't make the switch. In addition if they will eat you pod population quickly even with a fuge. Once they get bigger the recommendation is a heavy pod populated tank with at least 100 gallons. I know there are a few who keep them successfully but they are definately a hard fish to keep. If you decide to go with getting one you will have to replenish your pods routinely.

 

[jay0705]

I agree in theory. Most tanks will not sustain enough pods for a mandy. They never stop hunting. At night w my moon lights on all my fish sleep but the mandy lol I still see it out and a bout. Getting them to eat frozen and pellets is the best bet for long-term success. If u can find it , nutra mar prawn roe. Its a frozen food. All draggonets eat it. I say this w confidence bc i have spotted, green mandys, red and brown scooters. All love it. For me its the easiest thing to get them eating frozen.then u add to the menu. BUT it is hard to find. Its like field of dreams lol if u feed it they will come lol so will all the fish in your tank lol

 

[nikkifro8994]

Tank update! This tank is now fully stocked. I'm gonna hold off on the mandarin for a while. I'm moving, and hopefully upgrading to at least a 55 or 75 gallon tank, next summer so I'll wait until then to start adding pods to the refugium. I'll use the current 29 gallon as the fuge on the upgrade tank. And I planned on adding a bottle of pods every month to keep numbers up.
So, in my 29 gallon tank, I now have:
1 perc clown
1 coral beauty
1 royal gramma
1 midas blenny
1 small frogspawn
1 red hermit
3 blue hermits
~8 turbo snails- estimate.
1+ serpent star- 1 that I've seen. Likely more.
They all seem very happy and healthy. They eat frozen hikari angel mix every day and alternating mysis and daphnia every morning. The dwarf angel is my most active, constantly swimming through rock arches and picking food off the rocks and sand. When I got the midas last week he was pale grey. He is now bright yellow and quite active unless I make a sudden movement. He love to beg for food, which I think he learned from my clownfish. The royal gramma is the newest addition, added three days ago. He is still figuring out his surroundings but is getting more active every day. The frogspawn, added with the midas, seems to be doing well.
I'm currently dealing with red and green algeas. I did a 20% water change last week and will do another this week to lower my nitrates. I ran out of tests for nitrate. I'll get more and post the results. Hopefully you can help me kill this algae without having to add any sort of chemical to my tank. Cleaning the glass every 2-3 days isn't too bad, but the algea is all over my sand, LR, and filter intake tubes. I've shortened the light cycle from 8 hours to 6, hoping that will help.