feeding dragonet mandarin

[christy2t2]

Hi I bought a dragonet mandarin from here and a bottle of copepods to go with him. I dumped the bottle in the tank at night. I only have him and 1 clownfish..how often do I replace the copepods for the 1 mandarin? Its a 55 gallon tank.

 

[jay0705]

How old is the tank?. One Mandy would eat the bottle in a wk or less if that's all its eating

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by jay0705 http:///t/397055/feeding-dragonet-mandarin#post_3537927
How old is the tank?. One Mandy would eat the bottle in a wk or less if that's all its eating

They feed on thousands a day. That's why you should wait a year, to get the copepod population booming, and have a refugium so they have a safe place away from the dragonet to continue to breed. What you purchase in a bottle is just a starter (very young pods) to get the population going.

 

[jay0705]

Mandy's are gorgeous fish but there feeding habits cost many there lives in captivity. Now that said they can be kept w/o pods if your willing to do the work. I have 3 Mandy's and 2 scooter blennys in my 75. All dragonet's all specialized feeders. Do I have enough pods to sustain 5? Hell no lol. I buy a bottle as a treat. Should u keep more than 1 rt now NO!. Your lucky in the fact your only other fish is a clown. So target feeding shouldn't be hard. Frozen or live brine are the most common foods these fish are first taught to eat. Most will not all. Problem is nutrionaly they suck. Imo the best frozen food for dragons is nutramar prawn roe. Its prawn eggs. Not easy to find but can be found online. Mandy's love it! All will eat it. As will other fish. This will keep your fish feeding until it realizes pellets,mysis,ECT are also food.

 

[christy2t2]

Thanks to everyone who replied. My tank is about 8 yrs old..Unfortunately my mandarin passed away within 2 days of receiving him. The water he was in was very cold when he arrived and I thought he was dead then..He was hardly moving. I put him in my tank and I thought he might make it,but he never really moved from the corner of the tank and then within a few hrs he was on the rocks dead. I want to get another one but not really sure what happened to this one. My parameters are perfect. My corals and anemone are doing great. I just can't figure out what I did wrong. There really wasn't any reason at all for him to die.

 

[jay0705]

Shipping in this cold weather is what does it. I'd find a healthy one at a lfs