How big of a pod population to support a Mandarin Dragonette?

A

alcimedes

Member
So I have an 80g tank with approx 160lbs of live rock in it. The rock was picked up from someone breaking down their many years old tank, so it's well aged.

The tank has been set up in my house now for about 2 months, and the other day I noticed the pod population had really seemed to take off. I found dozens on the acrylic where I hadn't cleaned it off.

Mandarin Dragonettes are one of the most stunningly colored fish in the salt hobby (that you're likely to see and could afford), but in reading up it sounds like keeping them fed is the biggest problem.

My questions is based on people's experience, how big of a pod population are we talking about to support the fish? As of right now, I can see hundreds of pods in a few square inches of algae covered acrylic, and most of those pods have the little egg sacs on them as well. Did you supplement their diets with frozen/other live foods?

I don't want to get a fish to just watch it slowly starve.
 
if this is your first tank, i would give it a few more months before getting a dragonet. mostly to give yourself time to acclimate to your husbandry routine and whatnot. this will also give the pod populations in your tank time to stabilize.

usually with new tanks, newly migrated, etc... the pods will go through some boom and bust cycles in the first few months as they start to normalize their numbers and their food source(s).

i don't supplement my pods with anything specific. they do a great job feeding off micro-algae, bacteria, and detritus from decaying food. so my general rule is that as long as you're providing them sufficient places to hide, live, and breed (i.e. your rock and sand, your fuge, etc...) and feeding your tank at an acceptable level they should do quite well.

you can culture/dose phytoplankton, aka green water, and they will also use that as a food source, but in my experience tanks of sufficient size with normal feeding usually do a pretty good of providing for them. exceptions to this being things like bare bottom tanks, or ULNS (ultra low nutrient systems) which provide limited resources for zooplankton to flourish.

and 80g with ~160lbs of live rock (assuming sand and a sump as well), sounds like a great configuration for keeping a single dragonet. my mandy, Mushu, did very well in my 75g for several years before moving in to her new home when we upgraded tanks during a house move.

as far as exact numbers, i've never been able to come by any hard and fast rules. the tiny size of their preferred food source(s) makes it difficult to impossible to say you need X number of pods per every Y inches of glass to ensure success. so the next best thing we can reference is general guidelines for tank size, setup, etc... compiled from anecdotal evidence.

if you haven't already, setting up a fuge is another trick that helps stack the deck in your favor. i do recommend them if at all possible, even it is just a small area of your sump, or HOB.

you can also always look in to supplemental feeding. while it's important to have the conditions already present for the dragonet to feed itself, it certainly never hurts to look in to some supplemental feeding strategies. PaulB has a rather ingenious feeder device for worms and newly hatched baby brine shrimp that i am quite fond of.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2166449

good luck! sounds like you're off to a great start with keeping one of these fish. mine is hands down one of my favorites.
 
My blog has an actual calculation...but your tank should support one SMALL one once your fuge sets up. Once they're crawling on the glass or moss down there in fair numbers, you should be good.

Here's the piece I was looking for: " Can I keep a mandarin or scooter?
Posted 03/03/2012 at 09:44 AM by Sk8r
A mandy should be making a successful 'kill' of a pod every 5 seconds to remain healthy. Keeping one in a well-established 50 with 50 lbs of holey rock, and a mature, year-old 20 gallon fuge with another 20 lbs of rock is very marginal. If you meet those conditions and there is no competition for pods, you can do it with caution.

To run the math, there are 86400 seconds in 24 hours...and given 12 hours of dark when it is not eating (it actually eats before the lights come on...that is 43200 seconds of daylight, divided by 5 (every five seconds)---meaning that a mandy eats about 8640 pods a day, or 720 an hour. Two thousand pods, if fed to it in the required concentration, will be eaten in less than 3 hours. If you have a pair---do the math. You need at least 100 gallons supported by a very large, strong fuge with cheato and live rock.

Note that mandarins and scooters are the one type (dragonets) exempt from quarantine, You take your chances, this once. Their difficult diet makes quarantine a no-go: fortunately their extreme protective slime coat does not allow them to host the ich parasite (unless the fish is sick and/or in bad water conditions [particularly very low alkalinity.]) IE, they can get it, but it is very, very rare. Their slime coat is so thick they feel like a handful of warm Jell-o, and they are frequently believed to have ich---when they have simply gotten some white sand grains stuck to the slime coat.

They have no sense of territoriality toward other species (and will violate territory completely oblivious to the other fish's objections.) They will, however, kill ANY other mandarin that appears if the hunting is not very, very, very good. If you do not start out with a mated pair, don't try to put another mandy in later.

If you have the right tank and are willing to risk the no-quarantine dice roll on a pretty solid bet---they're a very pretty addition to your tank, usually out even before the lights are on, terrorizing the pod population."
 
Thanks, that's almost exactly what I'm looking for. Due to their lack of quarantine, I was thinking they'd be one of the first fish I add to the tank, vs. adding towards the end.

I'll give the pod population a few more weeks to stabilize and see where I'm at.

Amazing looking fish, just want to be sure I do right by them.
 
I have a mandarin in my 110g for over a year now n looks to be healthy. Your 80g should support it, especially with 160lbs of live rock.

picture.php
 
My 75 has a 30g fuge and a 50g sump. Pods are everywhere.

I find that not cleaning the detritus out of the fuge makes the population explode. Though it's a hard balancing act between rising nutrients and pod populations.


My mandarin was a rescue, who is doing just great now.
 
My 75 mixed reef with no sump or fuge has a fat red mandarin that decimated the pod population when first added. They used to cover the glass in such large numbers that I have to clean them like algae, but the mandarin made them all disappear. Now several months later, the pods are coming back on the glass surprisingly, and the red mandarin is fatter than ever. I also see pod exoskeletons floating around when i blow off the back of the rocks so the pods are able to grow and multiply, even with my red mandy on the hunt.

I would advise a high import/high export system to allow pods to multiple quickly (only if you are having issues with pod depletion). My feather dusters blanket my rocks in the shade, so that means theres lots of food for the dusters and the pods to multiply.
 
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