Will Mandarin have enough pods to eat?
- Thread starter jfingers088
- Start date
reeffreakgeek
Member
I have a Mandarin in a 72gal with 110lbs of live rock,no fuge and no chaeto.It took her a better part of a year before she accepted mysis.I believe they can be trained but it takes time.Probably better off finding one that is already eating mysis.She is so well train now,that when I feed the corals with a turkey baster,she comes over to get her part.
Going on 6yrs+
Going on 6yrs+
salt_water
Member
Its more about the length of time the tank has been up and running, and how much the copepods have multiplied in that ammount of time. I was told not to add one until atleast 6 months or a year has past, giving the copepods time to get their numbers up. Adding cheato works great, but they dont have issues living deep inside the rocks, only coming out at night. I would not suggest putting this fish in anything smaller then a 40 gallon. Also, adding a bottle of Trigger Pods, which is sold at most LFS's, is great to add to your tank to get the numbers of copepods up. Once you have high enough numbers then you are safe to add the fish. Also, they will learn to eat different forms of frozen foods. Most of the time they will "hunt" a floating peice of food, until it makes "live" enough movements for the fish to eat. Atleast thats what it looks like watching them feed on dead frozen foods. They would much rather a live, fleeing copepod to get after. Very cool fish.
alyssia
Active Member
Originally Posted by salt_water
Its more about the length of time the tank has been up and running, and how much the copepods have multiplied in that ammount of time. I was told not to add one until atleast 6 months or a year has past, giving the copepods time to get their numbers up. Adding cheato works great, but they dont have issues living deep inside the rocks, only coming out at night. I would not suggest putting this fish in anything smaller then a 40 gallon. Also, adding a bottle of Trigger Pods, which is sold at most LFS's, is great to add to your tank to get the numbers of copepods up. Once you have high enough numbers then you are safe to add the fish. Also, they will learn to eat different forms of frozen foods. Most of the time they will "hunt" a floating peice of food, until it makes "live" enough movements for the fish to eat. Atleast thats what it looks like watching them feed on dead frozen foods. They would much rather a live, fleeing copepod to get after. Very cool fish.
Not all of them "learn" to eat frozen foods.
Its more about the length of time the tank has been up and running, and how much the copepods have multiplied in that ammount of time. I was told not to add one until atleast 6 months or a year has past, giving the copepods time to get their numbers up. Adding cheato works great, but they dont have issues living deep inside the rocks, only coming out at night. I would not suggest putting this fish in anything smaller then a 40 gallon. Also, adding a bottle of Trigger Pods, which is sold at most LFS's, is great to add to your tank to get the numbers of copepods up. Once you have high enough numbers then you are safe to add the fish. Also, they will learn to eat different forms of frozen foods. Most of the time they will "hunt" a floating peice of food, until it makes "live" enough movements for the fish to eat. Atleast thats what it looks like watching them feed on dead frozen foods. They would much rather a live, fleeing copepod to get after. Very cool fish.
Not all of them "learn" to eat frozen foods.
murph
Active Member
Originally Posted by alyssia
Not all of them "learn" to eat frozen foods.
This is most likely true but the majority can be food trained given the proper effort and IMO is pretty much mandatory for keeping this fish.
The problem is that even in large tanks the pod population will rise and fall naturally. Then throw in competition from other community fish and the likely-hood of sustaining the mandarin on the pod population alone is slim.
Believe it or not I consider food trained mandarins a good candidate for nanos where competition will be limited to a few other small tank mates and it can be easily verified that the mandarin is taking its fare share of mysis without overfeeding the tank.
The other option is a large species or nearly species spacific tank were the 100/150 rule could apply. Without competition it can work but who is going to set up this large of a tank for just a mandarin.
I currently have a tiny mandarin in what I guess you would call a species specific sump/fuge. Consist of a 75 gal tank with skimmer on one end filtration on the other and plenty of rock DSB and cheato in the middle and is plumbed out to my 75 gal display. There is so much rock and cheato that I rarely see this little guy and the mysis and pod swarms visible at night with a flash light is unmistakable. I still add a bag or two of pods from the LFS per month for peace of mind. Other than that I don't feed the tank.
I feel that even this situation is risky. But considering the tiny size of this poor little guy his chances at the LFS or in a community tank were nill and at this size food training is not likely to succeed either. Seems to be holding his own so far at about the 4 month mark.
Not all of them "learn" to eat frozen foods.
This is most likely true but the majority can be food trained given the proper effort and IMO is pretty much mandatory for keeping this fish.
The problem is that even in large tanks the pod population will rise and fall naturally. Then throw in competition from other community fish and the likely-hood of sustaining the mandarin on the pod population alone is slim.
Believe it or not I consider food trained mandarins a good candidate for nanos where competition will be limited to a few other small tank mates and it can be easily verified that the mandarin is taking its fare share of mysis without overfeeding the tank.
The other option is a large species or nearly species spacific tank were the 100/150 rule could apply. Without competition it can work but who is going to set up this large of a tank for just a mandarin.
I currently have a tiny mandarin in what I guess you would call a species specific sump/fuge. Consist of a 75 gal tank with skimmer on one end filtration on the other and plenty of rock DSB and cheato in the middle and is plumbed out to my 75 gal display. There is so much rock and cheato that I rarely see this little guy and the mysis and pod swarms visible at night with a flash light is unmistakable. I still add a bag or two of pods from the LFS per month for peace of mind. Other than that I don't feed the tank.
I feel that even this situation is risky. But considering the tiny size of this poor little guy his chances at the LFS or in a community tank were nill and at this size food training is not likely to succeed either. Seems to be holding his own so far at about the 4 month mark.