Are there enough pods in my system for a captive bred Mandarin????

[duganderson]

Good Morning,

I"m considering buying a captive breed mandarin.

I have a 34 g. red sea. In the back compartment, I have floss that I swap out every 3-5 days. I also have a small Drop 1.2 from Santa Monica Filtration. I have about 25 lbs of live rock and about 1 inch of sand. The tank has been up and running for 10+ years.

I have a clown, African Flameback, sixline wrasse, shrimpt/goby pair. I may buy a Midas Blenny.

Are there likely enough codepods in this tank for a captive breed Mandarin?

Any tips to boost codepods in this system?

Are any of my current fish big pod eaters? If so, I would consider giving them away to get a Mandarin.

Thank you, Doug

 

[Rover88]

No, there is almost guaranteed not to be.

A Sixline wrasse will eat pods, and they are voracious eater of pods. Given as you have quite a small tank, you are unlikely to have a pod population to sustain a green mandarin.

You would need to regularily supplement feed copepods to the tanks to make sure the mandarin has enough, as it will be competing with the six-line wrasse.

 

[Anemone]

Agreed, the tank is too small, especially with the sixline.

Kevin

 

[duganderson]

I can give the sixline away. I would rather have a Mandarin. What are your thoughts then?

 

[Rover88]

You don't have a refugium or a place where the pods can 'grow' safely.

In a tank your size, with the setup you have, I would not believe you could house a mandarin without supplementally feeding copepods. You'll need to either cultivate your own or buy them. I know my local reef store has half-litre bottles of copepods for 10$

 

[lpsouth1978]

I had a target mandarin in a 34g cube (with no sump) for a long time (almost a year), until he decided to go carpet surfing. He was fat and healthy, but only because he ate frozen enriched mysis. We would target feed him 2x a day. Most mandarins do not take to frozen foods and a 34g is simply NOT big enough to sustain a mandarin on copepods alone.

 

[duganderson]

Can't pods grow safely in the back compartment of this tank, espcially if I add cheato and a light or something else to support there growth?

You don't have a refugium or a place where the pods can 'grow' safely.

In a tank your size, with the setup you have, I would not believe you could house a mandarin without supplementally feeding copepods. You'll need to either cultivate your own or buy them. I know my local reef store has half-litre bottles of copepods for 10$

 

[lolgranny]

You're a dozen pods short. Sorry.


If you wanted to get one you could always buy some pods, but honestly my mandarin eats everything I throw at him. He's in a 400g and one of the most aggressive in the tank. It's quite humorous.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rover88]

From my understanding there is not a lot of room in that back compartment for either of those things. I know of people locally to me that keep mandarins that suggested against it for me because my tank is too small, and I have a sump thats bigger then your entire setup.

I'll not weigh in on what I think of their suggestions to me on that front, but I'd be very surprised if you could cultivate enough to completely feed your mandarin in your setup. You would /need/ to plan supplemental feeding.

 

[duganderson]

The captive bread Mandarins I'm looking at are apprarently already eating frozen and live foods. For folks with Mandarins that are eating frozen foods, do you have a device to feed them so the other fish are not getting all of the food before the Mandarin can OR is the Mandarin able to fend for itself when you feed the tank?

 

[lpsouth1978]

The captive bread Mandarins I'm looking at are apprarently already eating frozen and live foods. For folks with Mandarins that are eating frozen foods, do you have a device to feed them so the other fish are not getting all of the food before the Mandarin can OR is the Mandarin able to fend for itself when you feed the tank?

I just used a turkey baster. He would actually pick the mysis straight from the tip of the baster.

 

[Silly clownfish]

I have had my mandarin in my 75g with 20g sump (fuge capacity 4-5 gallons) for a little over 3 years. I grow out pods in a couple of plastic jars from pretzels to supplement what my tank produces and occasionally (maybe once a month) give her brine shrimp in a Paul B style feeder.

I think that my system is about the minimum that can support my mandarin, although I consider the supplemental pods and brine shrimp not really necessary, but a good safety net.

I did try in my mandarin to accept prepared foods while she was in QT. While I got her to occasionally take a few pieces of frozen mysis but not much and as soon as she got in my DT she got right to work on the rock and bpnever looks at anything frozen again.

 

[WVfishguy]

I set up my tank specifically for mandarins or a leopard wrasse, which is ironic since I have not seen either for sale in the seven months I've had it set up. :worried:

Anyway - The exhaust (outflow) of one of the sump pumps goes to the back, far left side at the bottom of the tank, shooting a stream of water to the right, under the rock work along the bottom.

The pump is placed in the sump with the intake facing up. You might duplicate this with a powerhead in the back section and a length of hose.

I place a cube of frozen food (plankton, bloodworms, mysis, Rod's, etc.) or live brine shrimp near the intake. The food is sucked in and is sprayed across the bottom and under the rock work the for entire length of the tank. Any bottom feeder gets its food before the other fish can get to it.

The marine betta (comet) loves this, especially as the stupid thing almost never comes out of hiding and basically gets food shot into his big mouth (the last comet I had seldom ever hid).

I believe you could keep a mandarin in a tank with few pods it it, if you were willing to feed small amounts three times a day using this method.

This technique came in handy after my Banggai cardinals spawned in the display. After the male spit out the fry, some hid under the rock work, and were well-fed from the newly-hatched brine shrimp feedings. Three of them actually survived the comet and chalk basslets, and are growing like weeds.

I never thought I'd get baby Banggais in that tank, but they are doing well.

 

[alton]

Check with your local club to see if anyone has a Mandarin that eats frozen? I had one for years in a 29 as well as a friend did that ate frozen robustly. I sold him because he kept stealing all the food I placed on the coral.