Trying to research...calling all Mandarin owners

[nina&noah]

I'm interested in maybe purchasing a Mandarin in the near future. I have found enough information on them to know that they are a high maintenance fish and that they only eat copepods. I can't find any info on how to prepare my tank for one. How would I know if I had copepods? Sorry for the ignorance, but I'm here to learn.

Any information or personal experience would be appreciated!
Hear are some details about my tank:
It's 90 gallons with live rock, coral and 2 rose anems. My stock list includes a small blue hippo, yellow wrasse, 3 blue chromis, and a royal dottyback that will hopefully be gone soon. My plan is to trade the royal dottyback for a royal gramma and then purchase two more fish. I'm looking into the mandarin and then one more (possibly a flame angel).

 

[jeanheckle]

Originally Posted by nina&noah
http:///forum/post/2842682
I'm interested in maybe purchasing a Mandarin in the near future. I have found enough information on them to know that they are a high maintenance fish and that they only eat copepods. I can't find any info on how to prepare my tank for one. How would I know if I had copepods? Sorry for the ignorance, but I'm here to learn.

Any information or personal experience would be appreciated!
Hear are some details about my tank:
It's 90 gallons with live rock, coral and 2 rose anems. My stock list includes a small blue hippo, yellow wrasse, 3 blue chromis, and a royal dottyback that will hopefully be gone soon. My plan is to trade the royal dottyback for a royal gramma and then purchase two more fish. I'm looking into the mandarin and then one more (possibly a flame angel).
I don't think you will be able to have one with a wrasse and the flame angel. They will compete for the pods and the mandarin will lose. Sorry.

 

[nina&noah]

Originally Posted by jeanheckle
http:///forum/post/2842724
I don't think you will be able to have one with a wrasse and the flame angel. They will compete for the pods and the mandarin will lose. Sorry.
hmmmm, that is interesting. I didn't know that wrasse and angels ate pods! What if I didn't get the angel? Would the wrasse still consume all the pods?

 

[jeanheckle]

The wrasse more so than the angel, they pick at the rocks all the time. I guess in a 90 gallon depending on how much LR you may have enough pods. I would wait until some more experts give their opinion.

 

[novahobbies]

Couple questions: How much live rock do you have? Does your tank have an overflow into a sump/refugium, or do you have a HOB filter of some kind? Finally, how old is the tank....how long has it been set up?
Mandarin health is almost always related to the amount of LR. Copepods breed in and on the LR, and if you have a refugium in your sump, they really get going in the chaeto or other macroalgae in the fuge. As I'm sure you've already read, Mandarins main diet consists of pods. Some can be coaxed into learning to take bloodworms or mysis, but you should approach buying this fish expecting the worst -- that he won't touch anything other than pods.
If you don't have a fuge, there are ways to increase your pod population. You can buy a HOB fuge, for instance.....the evil baysite is a good place to find that. You can build "pod piles," or small clumps of live rock rubble that the fish can't squeeze into....pods will breed and multiply in this safe zone, then venture out in the tank to be hunted down.
The Yellow Wrasse may present a problem....then again, it may not. How big is he right now? Do you often observe him picking at the rocks? Wrasses are more inclined to go for grammarus amphipods or larger rather than copepods.....the size of the fish (and it's mouth!) in part determines the size of the prey. If it's a very small (<2 inches) fish, you may run into a competition issue. If it's larger, you may be all right after all.
Regardless of the wrasse, I would definitely make sure you had a fuge or a couple pod piles for copepods to breed. Mandarins will eat 200+ pods a day if they can, and they will deplete our aquariums of pods in a remarkably short time if the pods don't have a safe zone to live and breed in. Good luck!

 

[oceanlover]

Everything Nova said is true.
I also have a 90 gallon tank. I set-up my refugium about 4 months before I got a mandarin so it was packed full of cheato and pods. ABout every two weeks I add another bottle of pods to the refugium so that I am always overflowing with pods.
I have two wrasse, a Mystery Wrasse and a Melanurus Wrasse. They don't pay a lot of attention to the pods as they like to swim a lot. So maybe it depends upon the type of wrasse you have whether it will compete with the mandarin or not.
I will say that a Scooter Blenny will eat an amazing amount of pods. So don't get a scooter blenny AND a Mandarin at the same time.
How do you know if you have pods? Look in the refugium when the light first comes on. You should see lots of little creatures swimming in the cheato.
I wish you luck when you are ready to have this marvelous fish.

 

[mboswell1982]

so just how hard is it to keep a mandarin well fed? i mean, how hard is it to culture a good copepod colony? i know u can order the packages of the pods through swf.com, so i was wonderin just how hard it is to keep them going, keep them multiplying, so ur mandarin wont ever go hungry LOL

 

[nina&noah]

Wow what great information! Thanks a bunch.
My aquarium is about a year and a half old. I don't know how much live rock I have because it's custom built and I just let them add rock until it "looked like enough." My husband paid the bill. (I know, a little spoiled and ignorant, but I've gotten better!)
The wrasse was my first fish, so he is full grown (more than 2 inches). I don't know that he would be a problem. There are several areas of the rock where fish do not have access and I do have a sump/refugium.
Now for a couple more questions. Once I get my cheato and pods set up in the fuge, how will I know when my population is enough to support a mandarin? Also, do you continue to restock your tank with pods or do they reproduce quickly enough to keep up with the demand?
Again, thanks for the great information. I really appreciate the help!

 

[globaldesigns]

I disagree with others, as I do have a mandarin with wrasses, flame and potter's angels. My mandarin is thriving as I have plenty of pods due to the fact I have lots of live rock and a 105 gallon refugium.
If you don't have a refuge, you may have a tuff time, as you may not have enough safe areas for the pods to reproduce. A refugium allows pods to reproduce without a threat and then they make their way up to the Display tank to become food.

 

[oceanlover]

Originally Posted by nina&noah
http:///forum/post/2843962
Now for a couple more questions. Once I get my cheato and pods set up in the fuge, how will I know when my population is enough to support a mandarin? Also, do you continue to restock your tank with pods or do they reproduce quickly enough to keep up with the demand?
Again, thanks for the great information. I really appreciate the help!
It takes awhile for most refugiums to come up to speed, depending upon how you build it. If you have some substrate from your existing tank and/or live rock from your tank, it comes up to speed faster. You'll want to see a lot of growth in the cheato. When I added my cheato, it was about a cup in size. Within a month it was like two quarts worth. I also had some caulerpa so I added it too. I had several live rocks that weren't pretty enough for my taste so they live in the refugium too. I let my refugium establish itself for about 4 months with 12 hours of light daily before I added my mandarin.
I am one of those people who like to look in my refugium almost as much as my tank to see what's growing. There is amazing growth in there. So I see the increase in little swimming bug-type things (various forms of pods). Once in awhile something new shows up- an aptasia

or some new zoas

. I even found a couple of little clown fish when my clown's eggs hatched. (I scooped them out and put them in the nursery so they could get the tiny food they needed.) So if I don't see enough swimming bugs, I'll add more pods. Generally I add at least once a month a new bottle of pods to make sure my pod population stays high. All the fish seem to like the pods so a little extra never hurts.

 

[mboswell1982]

thanks ocean, i was having the same questions as nina, cause id like to do a mandarin someday, and was wondering about the thing with the pods, so thank you very much

 

[1990jpyj]

i have one in my tank and he eats more brine then he eats the pods i think. but once a month i get a package from my LFS to add and it seems to be doing ok. the lady i got him form never did this cuz he always ate the brine.

 

[nycbob]

if u can post a pic, we can tell u whether u hv enough liverocks.