food for our mandarin

[shannpeach]

Hi! I am new to this site and relatively new to the hobby, and so I have a few questions. First, we have a spotted mandarin goby, which we now know probably isnt a good situation for a new tank. (The tank is 44 gallons) When we bought it, we were told he was just a grazer and that it would be fine. Now we know that we should supplement the tank with copepods since there probably arent enough in the tank now. We would like to set up some sort of refugium so we can allow the copepods to reproduce. The only problem is that we dont want alot of our tank space to be taken up with a refugium. So, does anyone have any pointers for us? Should we just set up a small tank to keep them in instead? But then how do we keep them from getting sucked up into the powerhead or filter? Does anyone know the requirements needed to allow the copepods to thrive? Lighting? Food? Heat? Live rock? We have been asking at the LFS but they dont know much about it. We would really appreciate any feedback or help. Thanks!!

 

[durabane]

They require the same temp and water quality that u should have on your main tank a low light or low time cycle because they are more active in the night time. Any tank size will do really but the bigger the better IMO A lot of live rock because that is where they live. You are still going to have to wait the 6-8 months till the tank establishes itself though before u have a lot of pod growth mine has been up for almost 6 full months now and I am just starting to notice enough of them to be seen. Might be quicker if u buy live rock and set up as sump so it will pull water from you existing tank. increase you water volume for main tank as well as create a safe place for pods to grow
just my 2 cents