fizztech
New Member
Hey guys there is a lot of talk on mandarin dragonettes lately so I figured I would post my success for medium sized tank owners. I own a 58g oceanic tank. I have had the setup for 3+ years. When I introduced the mandarin in the tank I fed it live brine, later understanding that live brine did not have all the nutrients mandarins needed, I decided a way to set up “pod breeding grounds.” Haha it sounds stupid but so far it has worked. Anyways even though I now have over 100+ #’s of LR for the first year of this beautiful fish’s life I did not. What I did was buy Near 20-30 pounds of flat LR, The kind that is about an inch thick but has a lot of length and width. I then placed the LR on the back of my tank parallel to the glass. This also makes a cool background for the lower part of the tank 
. At night there are always pods on the edges that I can see, so I know it is working. The greatest thing about this setup is that nothing can get back there and deplete the pods so they just keep growing and multiplying. Another good thing is that there also is not much detritus build up since it is in the back of the tank. Anyways, just thought I would share my luck. The mandarin is still alive and going strong today and is one of my most interesting fish.
. At night there are always pods on the edges that I can see, so I know it is working. The greatest thing about this setup is that nothing can get back there and deplete the pods so they just keep growing and multiplying. Another good thing is that there also is not much detritus build up since it is in the back of the tank. Anyways, just thought I would share my luck. The mandarin is still alive and going strong today and is one of my most interesting fish.