Breeding pods for mandarin dragonet in RSM250

[joeybemate]

I would love to keep a green mandarin dragonet in my 8 month old Red Sea Max 250 (65 gallons for you Americans) and would love some opinions and advice on my setup.

I've been doing heaps of research on it and I now have a 5 gallon tank set up. I wasn't able to find any specific pod cultures except ones that cost $30/bottle + $25 shipping, which I'd prefer not to pay. I bought a handful of chaeto from my LFS and got another handful from a fellow hobbyist's refugium. I have an aqua one aquanano 40 LED to grow the chaeto, which I am running 24 hours because of advice from LFS guy - thoughts/opinions? I added 1kg of live rock, and I also bought a chunk of lava rock to hopefully encourage breeding - I didn't really find anyone else doing this online, as most people seemed to just have an empty tank with phyto + air pump, but this is what was recommended by the guy at my LFS so I decided to run with it. I have an aquatopia 200L/h filter for flow, but have removed the sponge and instead replaced it with a ball of marine pure media from my sump, and a bunch of fluval biomax bio rings, also from my sump. Not sure what having a biological filter is meant to achieve really as I didn't think that there would be much bio load, but one was recommended by my LFS - what are your thoughts on it? I wasn't keen on a sponge filter at all because I thought it would remove too much food from the water - I have put a fair bit of continuum's phytoplankton into the tank to feed the pod population.

In my display I'm not sure how much live rock I have - at a rough guess maybe 20-30kg but yeah not sure. Being one of the older red sea max tanks, the sump/filtration system is on the back of the tank and is 6 gallons in volume. There's not really room for a refugium, although I could probably actually add a bit of chaeto to the spot where I have removed the stock biorings and carbon and now have some marine pure blocks and balls along with a bag of purigen. A fair bit of light from the display gets into the back so it may be fine - thoughts/opinions?

Any tips on how I should approach this, like how long I should wait before buying one and adding pods to the display earlier on?

Also, at some point in the future I wanted to buy a sixline wrasse - it would be big competition for pods but my plan is to target feed my mandarin through a syringe, and hopefully get it onto pellets/frozen eventually. Thoughts/opinions/advice is much appreciated

Current tank info: 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 lawnmower blenny, 1 banggai cardinal, 2 pyjama cardinals, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 linckia starfish, 1 biscuit starfish

Params: NO3 0, PO4 0.02, Mg 1200, Ca 370, KH 9.0dKh, PH 8.3, SG 1.025
I'm aware that my Ca and Mg are low and am going to buy some new supplements soon

 

[Mark9]

IMHO, wanting a mandarin then saying you are getting a sixline, then hoping the mandarinr will eat frozen, will lead to failure.
And your ca & mag are low, so something is not right there.

 

[joeybemate]

Thanks for your comment, but I feel like you didn't really read my post properly/understand what I was saying. I was hoping that my mandarin would eat frozen before getting a sixline, not after, and why would it lead to failure? Say I don't manage to get my mandarin onto frozen - if I keep a decent pod population then always target feed my mandarin after distracting the rest of the reef with food, where is the issue in that?

And I'm aware that my ca and mg are low, which is why I said so at the bottom of my post cheers. Why would something be 'wrong' apart from the fact that it's low - the reef normally just uses those minerals in a normal sort of way completely normally, and the fix would be to supplement?

 

[sde1500]

I'd get that breeder up and running and producing enough pods that you can stock your reef with for a few months before adding the mandarin. I am in the process of doing the same thing. Next couple weeks I'll be setting up a 10 gallon tank, and a small DIY phytoplankton reactor to feed the pods with. I want it running for probably 6 months, adding pods as often as I can to the DT to stock that population as well, before I add the mandarin.

Edit: though I'd probably not add a six line anyways. Personally, read too many stories about how aggressive they are. My tank is the same size yours is, bigger sump though, and I feel it would be able to manage the mandarin, but I'd still worry about over competition. Frozen feeding from my research is more supplemental, not a replacement for pods, and I wouldn't want anything that would threaten the mandarin.

 

[MondoBongo]

ditch the six line, aside from competition they are also often openly aggressive to many fish, especially those that they share a food source with. mandys are in no shape to defend themselves from a wrasse or compete with them for food.

you're also placing a lot of hope on the target feeding. i've found that they're hit or miss with that. neither of my two mandys eat any kind of frozen, but my scooter likes hikari mysis, so banking on them taking frozen as part of the strategy for their care increases the risk.

other than that, it sounds like a solid plan. chaeto is a great place to get pods from, so external cultures for it along with as much "fuge" area as you can make would be excellent.

the 65 with no sump gives you a razor thin margin for error. so best to proceed with caution and start with a small mandy and ensure no competition for food or possibility of aggression from other fish.

 

[joeybemate]

Yeah cool thanks for the advice! What is your breeder set up?

 

[joeybemate]

Yeah okay I was pretty keen on the sixline but I guess I should ditch it then. I'll take it slowly and make sure to shop around for a small, healthy mandarin

 

[MondoBongo]

Yeah cool thanks for the advice! What is your breeder set up?

i actually used 2 liter soda bottles for a while to culture both phyto and pods. now that i've upgraded systems i've been able to designate a 35 cube tank packed full of macro as my "display fuge" as well as a chaeto reactor in the sump and all the rock in the sump, fuge, and display, so i haven't been culturing anything in a while, save for my white worms, which everybody loves.

 

[JohnnyRedd]

I have gone the 6 line route, also. Awesome fish, always active, always darting around the rock work. He became a complete ***.

I also had a mandarin several years ago. Didn't have much of a fuge and kept buying pods (reefs 2 go have good pod deals which is the only nice thing I can say about them) but ultimately couldn't support him. I now have a HOB fuge on the 240 that will eventually be a pod farm as things mature. Once I can see 'em through the glass I will think about adding another one. Awesome fish but are very specific in their needs.

 

[cleverbs]

I would say you shouldnt even plan on getting the mandrin to eat frozen. #1 its probably not going to happen. #2 Even if you do 1 or even 2 feeding a day isnt enough for one at all. They eat NONSTOP all day long. a healthy mandarin is a CHUB their body is way bigger then their head and they look like little pigs. I had one in my 220g that was 18 months old before I even added it or any pod eating fish. I had plenty of pods in the 220g. Im not saying you cant keep one in your size but for no reason at all should you have ANY fish that is in competition with food. even if you are breeding them you cant breed that many for two fish.

 

[Mark9]

Thanks for your comment, but I feel like you didn't really read my post properly/understand what I was saying. I was hoping that my mandarin would eat frozen before getting a sixline, not after, and why would it lead to failure? Say I don't manage to get my mandarin onto frozen - if I keep a decent pod population then always target feed my mandarin after distracting the rest of the reef with food, where is the issue in that?

And I'm aware that my ca and mg are low, which is why I said so at the bottom of my post cheers. Why would something be 'wrong' apart from the fact that it's low - the reef normally just uses those minerals in a normal sort of way completely normally, and the fix would be to supplement?

Just calling it like it is.
You know your ca & mg are low, yet you haven't corrected, but you're going to hand feed a mandarin multiple times a day? If it even takes food at all? Sounds like a dead mandarin to me, just being honest.
Maybe just get the six line.

 

[joeybemate]

I have gone the 6 line route, also. Awesome fish, always active, always darting around the rock work. He became a complete ***.

I also had a mandarin several years ago. Didn't have much of a fuge and kept buying pods (reefs 2 go have good pod deals which is the only nice thing I can say about them) but ultimately couldn't support him. I now have a HOB fuge on the 240 that will eventually be a pod farm as things mature. Once I can see 'em through the glass I will think about adding another one. Awesome fish but are very specific in their needs.

I'll stay right away from the sixline then. Even if I don't end up getting the mandarin, an aggressive fish is something that I want to avoid in general. I was aware that they could potentially become aggressive, but was hoping that if I added it last and kept it well fed I could get lucky, but that was probably a bit too hopeful and risky. Thanks for sharing

 

[joeybemate]

I would say you shouldnt even plan on getting the mandrin to eat frozen. #1 its probably not going to happen. #2 Even if you do 1 or even 2 feeding a day isnt enough for one at all. They eat NONSTOP all day long. a healthy mandarin is a CHUB their body is way bigger then their head and they look like little pigs. I had one in my 220g that was 18 months old before I even added it or any pod eating fish. I had plenty of pods in the 220g. Im not saying you cant keep one in your size but for no reason at all should you have ANY fish that is in competition with food. even if you are breeding them you cant breed that many for two fish.

Fair enough. I knew that frozen was just going to be a supplement to their diet and would never be enough to support them alone, and if I do end up getting it I think I'd still want to give it a shot anyway as something to try out. It seems a fair few people have had varying levels of success with this, and I am planning to try a few things like mixing it with the pods and defrosting in front of a powerhead to trick the mandarin into thinking it is live food. There was a post I read by a guy who successfully created a 'diner' out of an olive jar, which he filled with pellets so if I can get my mandarin to take pellets and/or frozen, I'd like to take that approach as well.

Maybe I should have specified that it isn't something I am counting on, it was just an idea I had that I wanted to try out that could end up being beneficial as a supplement to the diet of my potential future mandarin.

Thanks for your comment and advice on competition

 

[joeybemate]

Just calling it like it is.
You know your ca & mg are low, yet you haven't corrected, but you're going to hand feed a mandarin multiple times a day? If it even takes food at all? Sounds like a dead mandarin to me, just being honest.
Maybe just get the six line.

Dude you're not very nice or considerate ay
You know nothing about me apart from one post on the internet, and yet you feel like from that you can comment on my fish keeping ability six months from now when I would get my mandarin if I do? I feel that I have learned an immense amount in these past six months and plan to keep on doing so over these next six. Much more than any other of the comments in this thread, yours is quite a personal one about me and my abilities rather than my set up. I was looking for thoughts and advice on my set up for breeding copepods, the ability of my tank to support a mandarin, and the possible potential for introducing some competition for food in the form of a sixline wrasse which I now understand is a bad idea. I was not looking for opinions on my ability to learn and improve and who I am as a person in general.