Does this fish have enough to eat?

buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
I purchased Green mandarin dragonet and put it in a tank that I've had for about a year now. I'm fairly confident that it has enough to eat but I want to make sure. Ok it has the fallowing:
1) About 20 lbs of live rock full of tastey fauna

2) I bought the bag of 200 copepods
3) There's all kinds of worms in that tank
4) I add plankton a few times a week
5) I feed the fish in that tank misis shrimp every so often
I know that it probably won't touch flakes and things like that that most fish eat and although I feel that that is alot for that little fish I just wanted to make sure because if there is anything that you guys suggest I get for it, I will. Thanks for the help!
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
Originally Posted by Buckeye88
I purchased Green mandarin dragonet and put it in a tank that I've had for about a year now. I'm fairly confident that it has enough to eat but I want to make sure. Ok it has the fallowing:
1) About 20 lbs of live rock full of tastey fauna

2) I bought the bag of 200 copepods
3) There's all kinds of worms in that tank
4) I add plankton a few times a week
5) I feed the fish in that tank misis shrimp every so often
I know that it probably won't touch flakes and things like that that most fish eat and although I feel that that is alot for that little fish I just wanted to make sure because if there is anything that you guys suggest I get for it, I will. Thanks for the help!
short answer is absolutely not.
it will eat all the copepods off your rock in 3 days max.
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
Originally Posted by renogaw
short answer is absolutely not.
it will eat all the copepods off your rock in 3 days max.
ok... than is there anything that I can put in there that it can eat?
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
nope. unless you can get it to eat pellets or mysis shrimp, without a constant supply of cultured copepods it is going to starve, or a VERY productive refugium.
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
Will it not eat the Kent Zooplex or anything like that because this site lists that it will eat microfauna.
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
zoo plankton is not microfauna. here's kent's decription:
This is a suspension of whole bio-engineered marine zooplankton raised in a remote area of the world. Animal size is approximately 800 microns, ideal for filter-feeding invertebrates as well as planktivorous fish.It provides incredibly high concentrations of Omega-3 Fatty Acids, fiber and high levels of color-enhancing compounds and surpasses brine shrimp nauplii in nutritional profile, may be used as a complete brine shrimp nauplii replacement. Contains no yeast or sugars.
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
btw, i have over 100lbs of live rock, and a large production of pods in my fuge. my mandarin looks thin to me. it CONSTANTLY hunts for pods. i'm currently cultivating pods, but unfortunately with only 20 lbs of rock, your pods won't have anywhere to reproduce before they are eaten.
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
what do they mean by "may be used as a complete brine shrimp nauplii replacement". Dragonets eat brine shrimp. If you can replace mauplii brine shrimp with this stuff than why won't the mandarin eat it?
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
good luck. :) melev has a nice movie of his mandarins eating pellets, i just could never get mine to eat them.
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
Well I knew that they survive off of the little stuff in a tank and I know that they don't have a long life expectancy but I thought that maybe there were things that you could add to the tank to get them to eat. Maybe if I use that garlic stuff it will help it to eat.
 
petjunkie

petjunkie

Active Member
They only don't have a long life expectency because people buy them thinking they will eat frozen or flakes, they are constant hunters during the day and eat tons, mysis even if eaten doesn't equal the protein of pods. Plus they are very slow eaters, if it begins to eat frozen you need to be feeding it at least three times a day with no natural food, they are slow eaters and lots of food ends up floating away polluting your tank.
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
correct. they only have short life expectancies because people don't do their research before buying them. more mandarins are killed slowly by starvation because of this, and there's no mandarin police to help them out :(
honestly, bring it to your lfs and get a credit. it won't live long in your tank.
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
i dont know... that guy went through 4 mandarins on that website. i'd not consider that a success...
 
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