How long until a mandarin?

[kreach]

Ok... we are considering yanking our sand sifting orange diamond goby out of the tank and taking him back to the LFS. The water is constantly floating with tiny particles due to his sand-sifting and he has pretty much completely decimated our pod population.
Eventually, I would like to have a mandarin. I know their diet consists entirely of pods, so I don’t want to put one in there until after the goby is gone and the pod population has recovered.
The tank is a 180 gallon with 250 lbs of live rock and a 2-3 inch sandbed. Any thoughts on how long it will take the pod population to recover enough to support a mandarin?

 

[flydan]

Hey,
I have the same problem with a 6-line Wrasse. Anyway, I have tons of pods in my refugium and I imagine quite a few survive in my live rock even with the Wrasse hunting them down. I would guess you would be OK after a month but a lot depends on what your set up is and what other fish you have.
HTH,
Dan'l

 

[kreach]

We don't have a refugium, unfortunately... although we are considering sectioning off a part of our wet dry to set up one.
Our current fish list (minus the diamond goby that we would be removing): firefish, 2 green chromis, black cardinal, bangaii cardinal, yellow tang, vlamingii tang, foxface, royal gramma, lawnmower blenny, bartlett's anthias and a purple queen anthias.
I'm sure there are still some pods in our tank, but I only RARELY see one... the diamond goby really did practically wipe them all out.

 

[bdhough]

Couple of months. Give it 3 or 4 if not 6+.....

 

[kreach]

Originally posted by FranknBerry
feed the pods and they'll multiply more quickly.
This may seem like a dumb question, but feed them with what?

 

[powdertoastman]

im sure they would just eat anything that falls from feeding your fish, but not 100% on that.

 

[kreach]

Originally posted by Powdertoastman
im sure they would just eat anything that falls from feeding your fish, but not 100% on that.
That's what I thought too. I could increase the amount of food I feed so that the pods get more, but then I run the risk of a nitrate spike from overfeeding the tank.
Unless someone can suggest a good way to directly feed the pods without causing a nitrate spike, I'll probably just continue with my normal feeding regiment. A slower pod reproduction rate is better than throwing my levels all out of whack.

 

[bdhough]

You can dose phytoplankton or zooplankton to your tank. Corals and all microlife benefit. Just be sure not to overdose.

 

[kreach]

We already dose with DTs, but I'll check into the zooplankton and golden pearls. Thanks!