Anyway to speed up pod production for mandarins?

[sicshift]

I really want a mandarin but have a brand new tank. I know I have to wait quite a while for tank maturity, but is there anyway to help the process along?

I won't put one in until the tank's definitely capable of handling one.

What's the timeframe for something like that? I have 100lbs of LR that's just finished curing.

 

[halibutk]

Copeopods feed on phytoplankton. More food....means more copeopods.

I put alot of DT's in my tank with no negative effects. I dont know if you can overdose phyto (i use live) My copeopods shot through the roof after i started adding more phyto to the tank more often

As for a mandarin. I would mature your tank for the better part of a year. How big is your tank?

 

[sicshift]

Copeopods feed on phytoplankton. More food....means more copeopods.

I put alot of DT's in my tank with no negative effects. I dont know if you can overdose phyto (i use live) My copeopods shot through the roof after i started adding more phyto to the tank more often

As for a mandarin. I would mature your tank for the better part of a year. How big is your tank?

It's an 80 gallon.

 

[koj11]

You can also build yourself a pod pile. This is just a small pile of rubble size pieces of rock that give the pods a safe place to breed without fear of predation. I noticed a big increase once I did this.

 

[sicshift]

You can also build yourself a pod pile. This is just a small pile of rubble size pieces of rock that give the pods a safe place to breed without fear of predation. I noticed a big increase once I did this.

Thanks, I was just reading a thread on it when I did a mandarin search.

 

[halibutk]

It's an 80 gallon.

Big enough.

If you want a little side project you can do what I did. I placed a small ten gallon tank with a areation stone and simple biowheel filter up.

Live rock rubble in the bottom, brillo pad algae floating around, and after a small cycle i placed a couple live rock rubble pieces that had pods in them in that tank. FLooded it with phyto in daily feedings and watched the pods explode. I then scooped up the live rock rubble and placed in tank. Like a little pod hatchery.

Alot of work for pods but hey im a biologist i like my little experiments

 

[rza007]

halibutk- sound like a fun experiment. Do you culture your own phyto? Is there anything else that pods thrive off of?

 

[halibutk]

Ive heard they will eat flake food finely ground but dont quote me on that. I feed phyto and yeah i do culture my own from DTs. But havent this past 2 months. ONe big bottle of DT's lasts me a long time.


When i cultured my own phyto:

I use lipton ice tea bottles with some fertilizer and grow green water for a week to 10 days basically till i cant see through it and is solid green in color. I then add half a botle of this into my tank once a week. Got to be careful how much fertilizer you use though... i made the mistake of putting too much in the culture which went into the tank and had an alge bloom from hell after i added the phyto.

I have a 20 gallon fuge on a 30 gallon tank packed full of macro and they loved it so it wasnt that bad and any excess fertilizer in the culture get taken out by the macro algae in fuge

 

[phishlet]

What kind of fertilizer do you use? I've heard of the stuff from Florida Aqua Farms but are there any other options?

 

[luvmyreef]

I am also interterested in knowing what kind of fertilizer you used. This is new to me but would like more info.

 

[blueoceandiver]

i have a 10 gallon with brillo algea and i feed flake food,they go nuts over the stuff .i harvest one a week to add pods to the other tanks.i use the smallest hang on filter and its enough for circulation.i use a 18w bulb for light.

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

Have you ever seen the swarm on a dying sponge or dying patch of encrusting gorg etc on some uncured LR. It almost creeps me out because there are 100's swarming. Or if a leather frag or stony coral dies,overnite the pods swarm it and pick the bones clean by the next morning. I've seen some awesome stuff doing flashlight checks at night. They even seem to hassle the snails sometimes but they never eat healthy stuff. Crazy how they tune in like immediately to something that dies.

I wonder what kind of pod action a little piece of raw shrimp/scallop/fish would generate. It would have to be screened off from the other crabs/shrimp/fish/brittles/ETC that would munch on it.

It may be worth asking the LFS for the 3/4 dead leather thing to feed the pods. Sometimes you can even frag off bits of good stuff that lives, and the pods get the rest.

 

[Myka]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=2159674#post2159674 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by halibutk
Ive heard they will eat flake food finely ground but dont quote me on that. I feed phyto and yeah i do culture my own from DTs. But havent this past 2 months. ONe big bottle of DT's lasts me a long time.

What is (are) DT?

 

[IanInDC]

DT is a farmer of various planktonic feeds. His products are known at "DT's" The two biggest ones, if there are even any others, are phytoplankton and oyster eggs. I use the oyster eggs for my shrooms and candy canes and they eat the heck out of them.

 

[reelfreak]

I tend to trade some smaller rocks from my fuge for small rocks in the display every few weeks. I also take my macro algae and dunk it in the display tank, give it a few shakes and watch the pods run for cover.

I've had my mandarin for about 2 years now in my 55g. Go ahead and tell me how horrible that is if you want, but simple fact is this fish is healthy and happy. The tank was up for a year before adding him, w/ at least 80#s of live rock.

I wouldn't try a mandarin in anything smaller or with less LR and LS....JME