I'm considering adding a Mandarine fish.

[stevo222]

i like having sand in as many areas as possible when dealing with dragonets. it helps give more surface area for pods to populate.

your tank size sounds promising, especially with the fuge. how do you look on rock in the display? i like to go fairly rock heavy for my mandy's feeding pleasure.

january 2015 is closing in on a year. that's my typical suggestion for "best practice" as far as length of time on a new tank.

Based on what exactly? I am curious to see your references for this.*Is this a arbitrary number?

imagine if you made the statement about human food consumption that a pound of potato chips was better than a half pound of mixed vegetables. if you're only looking at one measurement, the weight, you're not getting the whole picture.

Are you comparing worms to potato chips and pods to a mix salad? Do you think it is a bad idea to feed worms? I understood exactly what he was implying. That was it is a good idea to supplement the mandrins diet with worms.

 

[MondoBongo]

Based on what exactly? I am curious to see your references for this.*Is this a arbitrary number?

i gave no specific numbers for surface area, so i'm not sure what you're calling in to question here?

however, if you'd like some light reading on substrate surface areas, enjoy:

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/44623/studyofsurfacear444leam.pdf?sequence=2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_surface_area

http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informa...mationmodule=1130447039&topicorder=3&maxto=10

versus a smooth surface:

https://www.google.com/search?newwi...=0CF0Q1QIoADgKahUKEwjh9OWQxrDIAhVG7IAKHT4PCBs

what? didn't think this was backed up? :lmao:

Are you comparing worms to potato chips and pods to a mix salad? Do you think it is a bad idea to feed worms? I understood exactly what he was implying. That was it is a good idea to supplement the mandrins diet with worms.

you're parsing words in a ridiculous fashion to obfuscate the debate. i pointed out very clearly that making the blanket claims that:

One piece of worm equals about 100 pods.

and

Therefore, getting them to eat a piece of worm is a better return on the amount of energy required in food gathering.

were entirely unsubstantiated.

there is no analysis or comparison of weights or nutritional profiles. the original comparison is just a number plucked from thin air.

if you're going to troll my arguments, try to do so in some way that makes sense. :love2:

 

[MondoBongo]

consequently this is why sand is often used for filtration:

http://water.epa.gov/scitech/wastetech/upload/2002_06_28_mtb_sandfltr.pdf

Equations used to determine the surface areas (Af) in acres are also shown in Table

more:

http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ceng402/Hirasaki/CHAP3D.pdf
http://lawr.ucdavis.edu/classes/ssc107/SSC107Syllabus/chapter1-00.pdf
http://www.sandatlas.org/brain-games-with-sand-grains/

are you someone who made a brand new burner account just to pick a fight?

 

[laga77]

White worms are 70% protein and 14% fat, black worms 47% protein and 20% fat. Pods are 55% protein and 7-14% fat. These numbers vary by species. The nutritional value of worms are in a form that can be utilized by marine fish. Everyone that feeds worms to marine fish knows this by the results. Mandarins have a diverse diet in the wild which is lacking in our puny tanks. Worms are a great supplement to their diet. They offer high nutritional value which the fish does not have to hunt all day for. Seeing that a pod about .01 the size of a piece of worm, I will stand by my statement. This is my opinion. You are entitled to yours.

 

[MondoBongo]

Again, I'm not against feeding worms to marine fish. In fact, I'm a big supporter of it. I have yet to meet a fish in any of my tanks that will turn them down.

I understand that dragonets have a varied diet in the wild. My issue was with the specific claim of the codified number.

All I asked for was a reference. I don't think that's an outlandish request, nor do I think it is an attack.

The defensiveness strikes me as odd, but hey whatever. My opinion in this case is the same as yours: worms are good food. I'm just trying to pin down how good. That's all.

 

[stevo222]

"January 2015 is closing in on a year. that's my typical suggestion for "best practice" as far as length of time on a new tank."

should have been more specific. Where did you come up with the 1 year? Any literature on sand increasing the amount or pods? Something with grain size and the affects will be great.

 

[MondoBongo]

"January 2015 is closing in on a year. that's my typical suggestion for "best practice" as far as length of time on a new tank."

should have been more specific. Where did you come up with the 1 year? Any literature on sand increasing the amount or pods? Something with grain size and the affects will be great.

you're not a very good troll.

the statement clearly says "my typical suggestion for 'best practice'". this is starkly identifying this statement as a statement of opinion, not of quantifiable fact.

that's the appropriate way to identify an opinion versus a truth. you label it as such.

i work very hard to make sure i label all of my opinions as such. that way, readers can take it in to account that the information is anecdotal, and based on my personal experience. then i am in no way misrepresenting things as being authoritative.

i'm flattered that you went through the trouble of creating a brand new account just to troll me, i must have gotten under your skin something fierce. :love2:

 

[Scoted]

Be careful with the ruby red scooters, of the scooter family, they are the most difficult to get to acclimate to frozen/pellet food if you ever choose to do so.

There are three types of scooters typically available, the regular scooter (black/white spots), the red scooter (pale red/white), and the ruby red scooter (the one in your pic). The ruby red are known to be the most difficult to acclimate to any type of non-live food. The black/white are the easiest to acclimate to non-live foods, I have two that readily eat frozen food.

If you want to get a mandarin or a ruby red scooter, one or the other, and have it's primary food be the copepods, then go for it. If you want to get both a scooter and a mandarin, then probably better to get a black/white scooter that is known to already eat non-live foods, it'd be better to try and only have one fish which will go after the copepods, because either will go through copepods by the high hundreds, even thousands, in a day.

Thanks for the advise. I will only get one type but i just happen to see the ruby red scooters at the LFS and they are stunning. I am leaning towards the red mandarin though.


Even though this has turned a bit finger pointy, there is some great info being thrown about and for that i thank you all.

 

[CedzAquAddictio]

Scoted, I think you are making a wise decision. One or the other in that size tank is a good idea. You never know. Get the mandarin, and see how it goes for a while (make sure your mandarin and pod population are growing simultaneously). If all is well, and pods are still abundant, take another look at the scooter...

BTW: This thread is making my day. We get laughs and information at the same time :lol: . Seriously, I am gaining useful information through all of this...

 

[MondoBongo]

So let me explain/walk this back a bit here.

Laga and I have had some disagreeing opinions in the past in a few areas. So it's a username I recognize, and give additional scrutiny to. I was rude, and I shouldn't have been.

I get real aggro about dragonets and their husbandry because I've seen all too often what happens when people get them but don't have a suitable tank to support them or an understanding of their husbandry.

My concern with his original comment, is that someone who is not familiar with the fish and its requirements will look at that and say: well if 1 worm equals 100 pods, and these things eat a couple thousand pods a day, that means I can keep one in my 5 gallon pico if I just feed it twenty worms a day.

So I parsed his words, probably unfairly, and now we're here.

Although I will say I am genuinely interested in the nutritional profiles of different foods, because it tends to be extremely difficult information to come by, unless you have a Springer login. So while not the right way to ask it, my interest in where that info comes from is very real.

So my apologies for being belligerent. It wasn't my intention.

 

[ReefJunkie01]

Thanks for the advise. I will only get one type but i just happen to see the ruby red scooters at the LFS and they are stunning. I am leaning towards the red mandarin though.

Really good thinking. Pick one for now and try it. You're asking all the right questions and are preparing really well. I have a special place in my heart for these fish (mandarin and scooter), and it's really comforting seeing you prepare like you are. Please keep us posted, I for one am rooting for you to do well with whatever you pick. Good luck.

 

[ReefJunkie01]

Scoted, I think you are making a wise decision. One or the other in that size tank is a good idea. You never know. Get the mandarin, and see how it goes for a while (make sure your mandarin and pod population are growing simultaneously). If all is well, and pods are still abundant, take another look at the scooter...

+1
Best advice I've seen all day.

 

[laga77]

So let me explain/walk this back a bit here.

Laga and I have had some disagreeing opinions in the past in a few areas. So it's a username I recognize, and give additional scrutiny to. I was rude, and I shouldn't have been.

I get real aggro about dragonets and their husbandry because I've seen all too often what happens when people get them but don't have a suitable tank to support them or an understanding of their husbandry.

My concern with his original comment, is that someone who is not familiar with the fish and its requirements will look at that and say: well if 1 worm equals 100 pods, and these things eat a couple thousand pods a day, that means I can keep one in my 5 gallon pico if I just feed it twenty worms a day.

So I parsed his words, probably unfairly, and now we're here.

Although I will say I am genuinely interested in the nutritional profiles of different foods, because it tends to be extremely difficult information to come by, unless you have a Springer login. So while not the right way to ask it, my interest in where that info comes from is very real.

So my apologies for being belligerent. It wasn't my intention.

I agree we have opinions that differ. I started in this hobby almost thirty years ago when we did not have this internet thing to exchange ideas and you were on your own. So I tend to do things differently than most and observe the outcomes. I have a lot of time to do this now that I am retired. I look forward to your responses because I believe you know what you are talking about. When I got back into the hobby 5 years ago, I had problems like most people do with keeping a healthy tank. These problems disappeared when I switched to an all fresh diet for the fish and corals. I truly believe diet is the root cause to a lot of disease and death in our tanks and I am going to try to persuade as many people as I can to change. If I don`t list sources that is because I post what I have done and observed. As stated above, I look forward to our exchanges.

 

[CedzAquAddictio]

:love1:

 

[winters_robert]

LOL, My son asked me to add a Mandarin to our new tank. I asked him why he didn't ask at any point in the last 10 years to add it to our established reef!!! Now he will have to wait quite some time before this setup is established and ready to support his new request! Good luck getting everything in place before you pick up your new addition!

 

[CedzAquAddictio]

Good to see your son geting involved. Show him how to be a responsible reefer!!!

OP. Dig up this thread when you get the fish, and keep us posted on how it goes...