What tank size?
- Thread starter wafsman
- Start date
daugherty
part time reefer
many of them only eat live food and you will get anthropods in your tank that they eat and they will clean them out in a few weeks. so you will have to buy tigger pods from reef nutrition to keep up with the demand
wontonflip
I failed Kobayashi Maru
+1 james.....when I first started the hobby, I scoured for fish I wanted to get, and the mandarin was at the top of my list...but I held off on getting one because of the pod thing.
If you really want one, aside from buying supplemental pods, you can make an in-tank pod refugium by take some live rock, covering them with some kind of plastic mesh, so pods can grow without the fish bothering them, and of course, they will crawl out and feed the fish. You can even hide the meshed-rocks under more rocks. As long as they're given a place to safely populate.
If you're lucky, you might find a mandarin that also eats mysis --but they're hard to find, and before you spend on them, insist that they feed it mysis before you leave the store. If you don't see them eat it, I'd leave it.
If you really want one, aside from buying supplemental pods, you can make an in-tank pod refugium by take some live rock, covering them with some kind of plastic mesh, so pods can grow without the fish bothering them, and of course, they will crawl out and feed the fish. You can even hide the meshed-rocks under more rocks. As long as they're given a place to safely populate.
If you're lucky, you might find a mandarin that also eats mysis --but they're hard to find, and before you spend on them, insist that they feed it mysis before you leave the store. If you don't see them eat it, I'd leave it.
Bifferwine
I am a girl
Mandarins will usually starve to death in small tanks, because as others have said, many of them only eat live food. They will very quickly deplete any live food you have in a 40 gallon tank, and then they'll die. Mandarins should only be kept A) if they are eating frozen food, so you have SEEN them eat frozen food before you buy them. This way you can feed them, and they won't rely on live foods only, B) in a large tank where they have room to forage, and C) in a tank with a refugium to supply them with a constant source of live food.
Gigaah
Reefing newb
I can tell you how to keep your initial fish list in a 40g long as long as you don't run into the problem of the fish not having enough room. I'm not trying to be brazen or rock the boat here. I know people are probably going to flame me for it but I don't particularly care. I know what I'm talking about.
I now have two real world first hand experiences with the power of algae scrubbers. I will shout if from the mountain tops until people realize there is a better solution and you don't have to starve your tank just to keep your parameters down and you don't have to change your water every week instead just dose trace elements and you do not HAVE to have so many pounds of live rock if you don't want to(though its still a good idea imo)
You should add the fish slowly but inside of a couple months you could support your mandarin.
You'd want to wait a few months at least to add the mandarin. Make sure you have pods in the tank.
Here is my tank. 55g long born(began cycling) nov 1st 2009. 40lbs of live rock.(6months old)
Male spotted mandarin(eats prepared food)(2")
female spotted mandarin (only eats pods)(1.5")
female green mandarin(only eats pods)(2")
scooter blenny(2")
dragon goby(4")
false clown(3")
baby maroon clown(2")
PJ cardinal(2")
half black pygmy angel(3")
mozambique blenny(2.5")
sand sifting star
Pencil urchine
I'm way under the "live rock quota". Seriously I can can(and have) drop in 5 cubes of food every single day for weeks on end and the water parameters will not skip a beat if your scrubber is built right and large enough. You will also get enough pods to feed an army. Since I have so many dragonets(4 now) I go the extra mile and put some filter floss floating in my scrubber to collect and let them mature. I also have a "pod pile" in my display tank.I don't have a skimmer or any mechanical filtration. Just my diy algae scrubber made from a storage tote, pvc pipe, cfl bulbs and a pump.
If you want further info on building a scrubber PM me. I'm not really going to lay out the build instructions here but I recommend making the scrubber 2-3x larger than you'll see quoted to make your system BULLET PROOF like I did. and if you cycle your tank with an algae scrubber it cycles a bit faster but at the end of the cycle you end up with 0 nitrates instead of starting to do water changes.
If you can DIY this is your solution.
My posts always get way to long. I apologize. let the flamming commence. lol j/k hope not.
I now have two real world first hand experiences with the power of algae scrubbers. I will shout if from the mountain tops until people realize there is a better solution and you don't have to starve your tank just to keep your parameters down and you don't have to change your water every week instead just dose trace elements and you do not HAVE to have so many pounds of live rock if you don't want to(though its still a good idea imo)
You should add the fish slowly but inside of a couple months you could support your mandarin.
You'd want to wait a few months at least to add the mandarin. Make sure you have pods in the tank.
Here is my tank. 55g long born(began cycling) nov 1st 2009. 40lbs of live rock.(6months old)
Male spotted mandarin(eats prepared food)(2")
female spotted mandarin (only eats pods)(1.5")
female green mandarin(only eats pods)(2")
scooter blenny(2")
dragon goby(4")
false clown(3")
baby maroon clown(2")
PJ cardinal(2")
half black pygmy angel(3")
mozambique blenny(2.5")
sand sifting star
Pencil urchine
I'm way under the "live rock quota". Seriously I can can(and have) drop in 5 cubes of food every single day for weeks on end and the water parameters will not skip a beat if your scrubber is built right and large enough. You will also get enough pods to feed an army. Since I have so many dragonets(4 now) I go the extra mile and put some filter floss floating in my scrubber to collect and let them mature. I also have a "pod pile" in my display tank.I don't have a skimmer or any mechanical filtration. Just my diy algae scrubber made from a storage tote, pvc pipe, cfl bulbs and a pump.
If you want further info on building a scrubber PM me. I'm not really going to lay out the build instructions here but I recommend making the scrubber 2-3x larger than you'll see quoted to make your system BULLET PROOF like I did. and if you cycle your tank with an algae scrubber it cycles a bit faster but at the end of the cycle you end up with 0 nitrates instead of starting to do water changes.
If you can DIY this is your solution.
My posts always get way to long. I apologize. let the flamming commence. lol j/k hope not.
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