Enough pods for a Mandarin?

[Av8bluewater]

225Gallon a year old. I have tons of pods but I rarely seem them in the day.
And they are big pods. I guess they have babies too.. hehe.
They are 1/8-1/4" pods. Those seem too big for Mandarins little mouth.
Are those the normal pods that sustain a Mandarin? I did buy some tiger pods once but not sure if they are still in there populated.

 

[snorvich]

A tank of that size, of that maturity, should have sufficient copepods. However if you have aggressive copepod consumers, e.g. six line wrasse or leopard wrasses, it may not work.

 

[Captain Billy]

In my experiences, an individual mandarin with no direct competition or supplemental feeding needs roughly 100 gallons to thrive. You should be just fine, you won't really see the pods the mandarin is feeding on.

 

[MondoBongo]

i'm going to concur with the others. as long as you don't have any other pod eaters in the tank, it shouldn't be an issue. that's a nice big tank, and presumably you have a large amount of rock and sand in there as well?

 

[Av8bluewater]

Do Mandarins eat those big pods?

 

[snorvich]

Do Mandarins eat those big pods?

You mean amphipods?

 

[MondoBongo]

while i haven't been able to find confirmation of this anywhere, i would assume that they would make up a component of their diet if sufficiently sized (i.e. small enough), however they would probably tend towards the smaller species of copepods,

watching my mandy feed, i have never been able to see with the naked eye what she is striking at, amphipods, generally, are easily visible without magnification.

most of the studies i am finding are on the gut contents of Callionymus lyra, not Synciropus sp.

 

[Av8bluewater]

You mean amphipods?

I think the bigger ones in my tank are amhipods.. Yes.
Seems a little big from the mouths I've seen on Mandarins. But then again I know sometimes fish stretch their mouths a lot wider than one would think.
But... I'm sure they're not all big. hehe
One thing I'm not willing to do is go out and spend a bunch of money on live food every week.
Do you mandarin keepers with similar tank size find yourselves having to put in Phyto or other pod food to keep pod population up?
I do have a refugium.

 

[Moort82]

You'd be surprised what a mandarin can take. Mine will take large PE Mysis in the same way a seahorse will, with a cute little puff of smoke.

If you want to try one then the best idea is to either find one feeding on frozen already or get a small one as you'd be surprised as to how much a large specimen will eat.

 

[Betta132]

Plus, wouldn't a giant amphipod just be a baby source?

 

[Panta rhei]

My mandarins eat frozen brine shrimps with no problems

 

[Roccus]

mandarins prefer the Tisbe strain of 'pods which are microscopic... as far the populations of pods go.. the dominant strain will take over and out compete the lesser strain... I have a mandarin in a 75 gallon tank with a 26 gallon sump /refugium.... my tank has been/ was stocked with thousands of the Tisbe strain from day 1... when I got her she was about 1.5" long.. she's over 3" now.. her only real competition is a diamond spot gobie that as most know is a bulldozer with fins... Mine has been trained to take frozen brine shrimp and chopped frozen red worms as well as fresh hatched baby brine shrimp as supplement to the 'pods.."her" feeding spot is a small patch of rock that I allow to grow hair algae on.. .. after distracting the rest of the fish with spot feedings at the far end of the tank I deliver her food with a turkey baster to her spot.. it's a lot of work ,but it can be done in a "small" tank...

 

[kdtran]

How do train the Mandarin to eat Frozen food? Keep spot feeding it?