Keeping a mandarin

[bms]

so i am thinking of purchasing Synchiropus picturatus, a mandarin for my 75 gallon FOWLR. i have had outbreaks of copepods out of nowhere in the past but currently do not see tons all over the glass at the moment. is it absolutely necessary to have a breeding population of copepods to keep a madarin? a few days ago i bought a bottle of double density (2000-4000) tiger copepods and over the course of two days added the bottle. i turned the lights off so it wouldnt be a feeding frenzy on my newly purchased copepods and add 1/4 of the bottle via turkey baster into the crushed coral substrate and into little piles of liverock. then the next day i did the samething. i do not have a refugium to grow them in so growing in the tank is really my only option** I have read that it is possible to get a breeding population of copepods in a tank by adding in the fashion that i did. i also bought some kind of phytoplankton?? (cant rem what it is) copepod food that i add generous amounts of every day or two. Has anyone out there had success doing this? About how long before i notice a nice colony of copepods?
** I sadly at one point purchased a Skilter 400. I wont go into any detail with this frustrating POS but lets just say it didnt work out. well looking at the design of the skilter, would it be possible to turn this into some kind of HOB refugium? Has anyone heard of a mod you can do to this to make it a mini refugium?
thanks for your help, brian

 

[cranberry]

I'm a rep for three types of copepods, one of them being the Tigriopus califoricus you speak of. We don't actually recommend them for seeding a tank/fuge, but use them more with target feeding. They just don't populate well in our warm tanks. We recommend, for you purpose, either Tisbe sp or pseucyclops.
The way you are adding them is the best procedure when one doesn't have a fuge or sump.... lights off with the baster.
Are you adding live phyto? One of the more popular species is Nanno, which really isn't best for copepods. They simply cannot get through the hard exterior "skin" of the cell. Rotifers manage it quite well.... but not copepods. I wouldn't recommend a blended phyto product, but I know they are popular.
Populations of pods wax and wane. Feeding them phyto will help get your numbers up. It's really difficult to predict how long it will take.
How old is your tank? How much rock do you have in there?

 

[browniebuck]

It really depends on what else you have in your tank as well as how much live rock you have. If you don't have any other pod depleting fish, you may be ok in a few months (take Cranberry's advice and look for the pods that she recommends).

 

[jstdv8]

I added a jar of DT's pods subtropical harpacticoid sp. about 3 weeks ago and since you cant see them in the jar you jsut have to wait and see if there was anything living in there. fourtunately there was and now 3 weeks later i have thousands crawling on my galss. they arent very big yet, but they will get there. pretty exciting. Im adding a sump in the next week or so and will add another jar to that as well. No fish in my tank yet. it just got done cycling about 2-3 weeks ago.

 

[bms]

thank you for your advice cranberry. the tank is around a year and a half old although most of the live rock is about 5 years old transfered from another tank. i have about 100 lbs of live rock and about 80 lbs crushed aragonite.

 

[reefaholic33]

You could hollow out that HOB filter and put some LR rubble in it and use it as a small HOB refugium for your pods to have a safe place to breed.

 

[cranberry]

Originally Posted by bms
http:///forum/post/3182591
thank you for your advice cranberry. the tank is around a year and a half old although most of the live rock is about 5 years old transfered from another tank. i have about 100 lbs of live rock and about 80 lbs crushed aragonite.
O.O I don't think you have too much to worry about. That sounds like a lovely mandarin tank. It's always nice to replenish your pods every now and then but it's not anything you need to put a lot of money or time into. If you were looking to bump up the population, you could always just add phyto.
Do you have any pod competitors in there.

 

[bms]

this is my livestock:
*Yellow Clown Goby (1/2 inch long)
*Tomato Clown (3 1/2 inches)
*Blue Damsel
*Zebra Damsel
*Royal Dottyback
*10 Bumble Bee Snails
*4 Nasaurius Snails
*2 Turbo Snails (golfball size)
*20 Blue Legged Hermits (various sizes)
*1 Emerald Crab
*3 colonies of button polyps
*1 Candy Cane Frag
*A few Mushrooms of various colors
*1 Frogspawn Frag
*1 Coral i cant remember the name of. Its a frag, has about 5 hard tubes that come from the bottom then the top of each tube has a mushroom looking fleshy part that expands when the lights come on. its purple with a green center.

 

[bms]

Also i bought a "Randalli Shrimpgoby" 4 days ago but about 35 mins after being in the new tank he wandered into the blue damsels living/chilling/sleeping quarters and came out with a chunk taken off his top fin. The rest of that day he just kinda lay on the bottom against the glass or rocks and the next morning he was and still is missing. I fear for the worst..

 

[cranberry]

You look to be in good condition. Bumblebee snails are predatory whelks on sandbed critters. I have a couple of them, because they look nice, but I wouldn't have as many as you have.

 

[peasofme]

dragonets really arent worth the trouble. they can only really thrive in a tank with a self sustaining population of pods.

 

[cranberry]

IMO, he can have a self-sustaining population in a 75g with 100lb of LR.

 

[bms]

thank you for the confidence and inspiration cranberry. i am going to get a psychedelic mandarin in a couple days and spot feed until i have a noticeable population of pods. the color and curious and peaceful behavior are just what this tank needs.

 

[cranberry]

You can still have a good population but not see them on the glass. I find them there if I have a population explosion (which will again dwindle) or if the glass has some notable diatoms/film algae on there for them to eat.

 

[anjiro]

I have a mandarin in 29 gallon biocube. I have 40 lbs of rock and have always had a large pod population, I got the mandarin last may and he has almost doubled in size. the only thing special i do is the back chamber on my cube is filled with cheato and about a half lb of live rubble. IMO, 100lbs of rock you will be more than good

 

[bms]

awesome, thank you for your replies. i think i will take a trip to my LFS this weekend and see what they have. they had a few mandarins there when i bought the clown goby and randalli shrimpgoby. if they still have the smaller of the three mandarins (which was the most active and vibrant looking of the three) i will most likely buy him and post some pictures.

 

[wigle36]

I turned and old filter/protein skimmer into a refugium. I have been using it that way for a couple years now. I put eel grass and other micro in there. I have also a mongrove tree sitting in it. I just put sand and rocks in it and I have tons of little copepods in there. I also have little featerdusters in it.

 

[bms]

thank you wigle36, i will definately spend some time this weekend looking into this and see if i cant figure out what i can do with it. do i need a light for it to keep copepods (as this will be the main purpose). i may end up throwing some chaeto or other kind of beneficial algae in there but im not sure as of yet. so far im thinking of live rock rubble and maybe some of that mud people use in the HOB refugiums. would this be a good idea or should i just stick to live rubble? thanks.

 

[garick]

Most of your pods will be in/on the sand and in/on your rock. They randomly will appear on your glass but you should have tons on the rocks/sand.

 

[bms]

Originally Posted by bms
http:///forum/post/3182824
Also i bought a "Randalli Shrimpgoby" 4 days ago but about 35 mins after being in the new tank he wandered into the blue damsels living/chilling/sleeping quarters and came out with a chunk taken off his top fin. The rest of that day he just kinda lay on the bottom against the glass or rocks and the next morning he was and still is missing. I fear for the worst..

great news! well i have a few things that happened today that made me happy: 1.) the randalli shrimpgoby i bought about a week and a half to two weeks ago which i thought was dead is ALIVE! i havent seen him since day one and was sure he was a gonner, but today i was looking at all the feather dusters that are popping up and i noticed a small head with two eyes under a rock glaring out at me. got my flashlight out and it was him! and his fin seems to be healing quite nicely. also 2.) i noticed that my tank has a bunch of little white sponges. i had previously noticed about 4/5 of them but now theres at least 14 that i can see and im sure there are more on the back and undersides of the rocks. good or bad? 3.) i also bought a mandarin a couple days ago and he is doing very well. he is so funny to watch, i swear mandarins are like the hummingbirds of the sea. he will hover over a rock and even turn upside down and elegantly pick copepods off the sides and ledges of the rockwork. last but not least, 4.) i noticed a bunch of copepods on my glass today. ive had outbursts in the past where ive spotted them all over the glass but im not sure if this time it was due to them spawning or me adding a bottle of copepods a week and a half ago...could be both as ive been feeding them phyto once every 4/5 days.