mandarin dragonette problem!~

fishieness

fishieness

Active Member
Hello everyone... i accidentaly placed the post in the agressive section... and i couoldnt figure out how to move it, so sorry for the confusions...
but anyways today i got a mandarine dragonette with about 8-9 pounds of live rock. My local fish store saidaroudn 10 would keep him satisfied and hed do realy well. They also have had him in a 10 gallon tank for a while, ive been watching that same fish for some time. But also today Gilpil informed me that my new fish will need at least a 75 galllon tank with 100+pounds of live rock for him to live!!!!! on this site it says i can feed them blood worms too. How would i do that??
But i guess the real question is, whos right? Im not doutbing Gilpil, i think its jsut that i dont want to believe its true....
 
duke13

duke13

Member
Mandarin need a lot of rockwork because their main diet consists of 'pods', which grow with live rock. If there is a lack of LR, then the pod population will not be as plentiful and therefore the Mandarin could starve. Now if the Mandarin you bought will accept other foods other than pods, then you're in luck. Some Mandarins will eat frozen foods like bloodworms and mysid shrimp and some are very stubborn and will only eat pods.
Such a stunning fish should never be sold without people being made aware of its requirements.
Bottom line: The more LR, the better.
 
fishieness

fishieness

Active Member
how do i feed him the frozen foods? simply drop some in and see if he eats? And is it possible to train him to eat the frozen stuff like you would train another fish to eat flakes or such?
 
duke13

duke13

Member
Fish, Mandarins shouldn't be kept in a 30 gal unless it's jammed pack with LR and has a refugium that is also packed with rocks.
Regarding food, just put enough that your fishes would normally finish in about 3-4 minutes. You really can't spot feed a Mandarin. If you find that your Mandarin isn't accepting the other foods, please take him back to the fish store. I know that may be a hard thing to do but his chances of survival in your tank is slim.
 
duke13

duke13

Member
I also wanted to add:
Your local fish store are a bunch of idiots. "He'll be happy with around 10 pounds of rock" - ????????
 
B

bigdogzack

Guest
I know it's disapointing but your lfS should be slapped for indicating that 10 lbs of LR would provide enough natural food...i.e. I agree with what all of the above people stated...also, really helps if you have a refugium where adult pods can live safely and supply a constant "restocking" for the display tank (their young will survive the trip thru the return pump)...I would suggest at least a 100 lbs of LR and that should be established for several months before adding a mandarin...best way to monitor if your mandarin has a supply of food is to shine a flashlight into the tank at night, if you don't observe any pods on the LR the Mandarin cleaned the tank of them (point is, don't assume just because the rock is teir the pods are also)...finally, if you have any wrasses, blennies. etc. that will also feed on the pods even more LR will be needed, again, check the tank at night after the lights have been off for a few minutes (it's amazing how much life is in a tank that we don't realize...)
 
fishnerd

fishnerd

Member
I have been an avid reef keeper for about 10 years, and made an advanced reefkeeper's similar mistake...
I have a 150 acrylic reef (200-250lbs rock) which has been established for YEARS. It had pods all over the place, so about a year ago I felt it would be humane to add a mandarin to the reef. He was doing great and then a friend offered me a Flame Hawk about 8 months ago.
Hindsight 20/20, I should have realized how easily a Hawk could decimate a population of pods in an established tank. The Flame Hawk has since cleaned out the adult/breeding population of pods and there is not enough food for Jimmi Hendrix (yes, my girlfriend named my mandarin). The mandarin is now thin, and all I can do is hope that my amphipod/copepod palace of love... aka- refugium can pump out enough babies for Jimmi to get fat again before he is ill from emaciation.
 
msd2

msd2

Active Member
You may want to contact the LFS and ask what they had been feeding him. There is a chance he accepts some type of frozen or live brine. Unfortunately LFS usually say just about anything to sale a fish, dragonettes are a challenging fish to keep. The only other way I can think of helping ensure he lives is to order live cocepods/fuge kits (I forget the spelling) every few weeks and increase your lr. It will get expensive but thats about the only way I can imagine keeping a dragonette healthy in a smaller tank.
Ironically enough I just added a dragonette myself, I had been watching my pod population in the fuge and display tank and decided it was time. I have around 275-350 (honestly I forget anymore) of rock between my fuge and main tank so it should support a good pod supply. Heres the irony, after I put him in the tank I have only seen him once to see what the hell I was doing when I was doing the water change. but he was good n chubby.
 
g-dude

g-dude

Member
Im happy to here that. Ive got two of them my self and now after reading Im most likly going to check my tank for pods. Mind you my tank has been going for about 7 yrs with out any fish that feed on pods. But you never know right? I am going to make a refuguim out of my 10 gal after I use it for Hyposalinity on my hippo tang. Im thinking of just filling it to the top with LR, small power head, heater and would i require a filiter, protine skimmer and lights?
 
B

bigdogzack

Guest
It seems that my tanks (refugiums) that have some lighting over them contain the most pods...I run the lights just a few hours each day (on timers)...the pods seem to do best with some algae growth in the tanks...i have the LR suspended a few inches above the tank bottoms (on eggcrate set on PVC pipes with holes in them)... a powerhead in each tank circulates water under the LR...make sure you put foam prefilters on the power heads used to ciculate water in the refugiums (the pods love to feed in/on the pre-filter...don't rense the filter out, just "squeze it' every so often to dislodge the ditritus build-up)...I also 'feed" my refugiums with pulverised flake food (i just put a rock in the container of food and shake it)...
 
msd2

msd2

Active Member
Just like everything else we all do it differently, lol. I have a dsb in my fuge, cheato and tang heaven, along w/lr. I run a 'lights of america 65wt flurscent, claims to equal 500wts, eh whatever but the plants do grow well (used for nitrate export). I used to run it off hours of the tank, meaning when the lights were on in the display the fuge light was off, and viceversa, maintained a much more stable ph. But I didnt like the way it was growing so I now run it 24/7. Havent noticed any change is fuge pod population. The fuge part of my system only flows about 200gph. A skimmer on the fuge would be counterproductive because its going to chew up the pods/trap em in the skimmer. Oddly enough they make the return pump usually unharmed. But the needle wheel of the skimmer im sure wouldnt be so lucky.
 
fishy411

fishy411

Member
fishieness you could get like a 55 gallon tank and make it a fuge. Jam it with like 75 pounds of LR and that combined with like 40 in yur Display woulde be enough if it gets established
 
melissa1

melissa1

Member
We have blue mandarin dragonet and we are faced with the same dilemma, we tend to read as much as we possibly can about a fish, coral invert, etc before we put them in our tank primarly becuase we dont want to spend a lot of $$ on fish and not know the survival rate!!
We have been looking for somewhere to buy the "pods" for the dragonet and cannot seem to find somewhere that sells them. We currently have a good 55-60 lbs of LR adn slowly getting more. We did however buy some zoo plankton and read that it will has copepods in it. We also have a wrasse but the dragonet picks at the rock more than he does i see my dragon "sifting" from the rock but i am not sure if he is eating anything.
So i guess my question is if none of the pet stores around us sell copepods how and/or where can i order them??:help:
 
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