Anyone Try This? (Mandarin Question)

[fretfreak13]

Ok, so I hear it's harder to keep them fed and healthy in a small tank (mines a 30 gal). I'm getting my very first fish today, and it just finished it's cycle so I wont be getting a mandarin until many months from now, I'm just trying to plan ahead. I hear if someone notices their's is getting skinny, they put it in their QT to baby it and fatten it up. My mom hate's my five+ fish tanks in the basement, so setting up another tank is out of the question, though I do have a QT. What if there's something else in it at the time?
Annnnyyyywwwaaays, to my question. Has anyone ever sectioned off a portion of their display tank? Maybe with a little three gallon "tank" that's drilled for water flow, and covered with a water-safe mesh to keep the pods from escaping? I would put LR rubble and caves in there, almost with no actuall free-swimming room, and inject it with pods until the little Mandarin got it's weight back. Anyways, the way my DT aquascaping is, there's a straight line that curves more to the front on one side, leaving a portion of the back open, so the LR and corals would hide the little sanctuary.
Anyone think this is a good idea, or has anyone actually tried this?

 

[9supratt4]

You shouldn't need to put a smaller tank in your bigger tank. All you should need is to add a bunch of piled up LR rubble to a section of the tank where no fish can eat the pods that are within the rock and they would use that as a breeding area.

 

[fretfreak13]

I do have about 15 lbs of LR in my tank, along with a large peice of dead coral that my mom got from aruba, which is starting to get covered by coraline so it's losing it's white color. There are pods in there all the time, and there's no way that fish can get in there, at least not to the center of it. Will that end up being my pod breeding ground then? No need for even the pile of LR?
The coral looks like this, by the way.

 

[alix2.0]

youll need a lot more rock than that. about 9 months ago i bought a starving mandarin because i felt bad for it, and it is now fat and happy in my 30g tank. but i have about 100lbs of rock in there. if you have enough rock in there, you dont have to ever worry about it ever starving or having to buy pods for it. ive never added pods to my tank once. just wait and make sure you can support a mandarin before you buy it.

 

[fretfreak13]

I'm planning on getting more rock, but buying live rock from my LFS for 10.99/lbs at fifteen years old is kinda hard. I have a friend who breeds a LOT of pods in a large fuge, so he said he'd sell me some to put in my tank whenever I needed to restock for the mandarin. I will be adding more rock like I said, but slowly. I'm just wondering now if that coral skeleton will work as a breeding ground for them like 9supratt4 suggusted?

 

[9supratt4]

Originally Posted by Fretfreak13
http:///forum/post/3126508
I'm planning on getting more rock, but buying live rock from my LFS for 10.99/lbs at fifteen years old is kinda hard. I have a friend who breeds a LOT of pods in a large fuge, so he said he'd sell me some to put in my tank whenever I needed to restock for the mandarin. I will be adding more rock like I said, but slowly. I'm just wondering now if that coral skeleton will work as a breeding ground for them like 9supratt4 suggusted?
The coral skeleton will give the pods somewhere to reproduce, but I don't think that will be enough. I have a 180 with 200-250lbs of rock and have always wanted a mandarin, but still have not bought one because i'm afraid it may not have enough food.
Like alix said...you should get a lot more rock. And I do agree that LFS's do charge a lot for the LR, but look around locally, on that one site specifically, and you can usually find some great deals!! I got all my rock for $150 bucks.

 

[fretfreak13]

Ok, thanks guys.