Mandarin Fish Challenge

[touristsis]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a newbie. I've just purchase a Mandarin Fish at the LFS. It looked so beautiful. When I got home, I started researching about it. I ran into lots of problems. I didn't realize it was that hard to feed the beautiful fish. I've also got so confused in the process.

I currently have a 220 Gallon Coral/Fish tank. It's been establish for 7 months?
Do I have enough copepods in my tank to keep 1 tiny mandarin alive?

If I don't can i just add? I've saw it on amazon i can purchase 24000 copepods for $150.00. I know it's a price to pay for my ignorate. Will this spike my tank? Will the copepods sustain themselves after i add this to my tanks? I don't want to starve this poor fish, i should never purchase it, but it's too late now. I'm determine to keep him alive, please help.

 

[ThRoewer]

To see what pod population you have I would suggest to check your tank at night with a flashlight and a magnifying glass. Turning all pumps off might also be a good idea.
Generally, if you added at least some live rock, you should have enough pods in your tank for a single mandarin.

I managed to keep a pair alive that I added to a 2 week old 25 gallon tank. That tank was of course filled with real (from the ocean) live rock and seeded with a bottle of tigger pods.
A 7 month old 220 gallon tank should work if it isn't a sterile stone desert...

 

[touristsis]

Thank You

Thank You

Thank You so much for the reply, this makes me feel a bit better. I've been reading on line and it scares me. So many people have to culture copepods in a separate tanks and have to culture their own phytoplankton. So I really don't need to go through all that just for 1 mandarin fish right?

 

[pfan151]

You should be totally fine with a tank that size assuming you don't have a bunch of other fish that prey on pods. Did you start your tank with live rock or dry?

 

[clowncaldy27]

I've had a mandarin in a 20G tank for a year , fat and healthy , put her in after around 2 weeks. The key is to get them to eat frozen foods. They eat pods constantly , so porous live rock , substrate , and chaeto are great areas for the pods to reproduce. I feed my mandarin frozen mysis and/or frozen brine once daily for fats, just to plump her up. You should have no problems in a 220G , but I highly suggest getting it to eat frozen foods if it's not already and make sure you don't put anything that will out compete it for pods in the tank as well (like a six line wrasse). Good luck !

 

[ThRoewer]

Sixline wrasses are generally a bad idea in combination with mandarins. For them to get along the tank needs to be crawling with pods so that they never see each other as competition.

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[touristsis]

Thanks everyone. I do see him pecking on rocks, then the rocks show sands flying away. I'm not sure if it's pods he's eating, I definitely can't see them. I've tried to look for them at night with flashlight, I don't see a single one. So confusing. Everyone swear if I look at night with red flashlight, I will see them? As a precaution, I'll just add copepods a few rounds just to be safe.

 

[touristsis]

I started with dry rocks, but I did purchase a bunch of corals in last 2 months that comes with rocks though. I'm guessing I have 350-400 lbs of rocks.

 

[Tripod1404]

Try to look on glass at low flow areas of your tank/sump. You are looking for very very small white specs. Don't expect to see something big, it would be as if there is dust on you glass but they would be crawling on glass. You can always seed a tank with them, there are companies that sell copepod cultures, but I can't see any reason why your tank won't have any unless you didn't add anything wet to the tank. Keep in mind most wrasses are good at hunting pods, if you have one, it might be keeping pod population low.


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[touristsis]

another question

another question

Another question. So I did see like 2 in my tanks with the red flashlight today. Are they a threat tot he pods for the mandarin? How about hermit crabs, emerald crabs, decorator crab, do they eat pods?

 

[kegogut]

Another question. So I did see like 2 in my tanks with the red flashlight today. Are they a threat tot he pods for the mandarin? How about hermit crabs, emerald crabs, decorator crab, do they eat pods?

What other fish do you have in your tank? Do you have a sump with live rock? Any Chaeto or refugium?

 

[Javeo]

I have a small mandarin in my 90 Gallon that was only set up a few months when I added her. She was pretty thin then but is fat and healthy now, 6 month later. The tank is still crawling with all kinds of pods. Crabs and shrimp are no real competition, just don't add any fast moving pod eaters like wrasses as mentioned above. In your tank you could easily have a pair of mandarins.

 

[touristsis]

Fish

Fish

Hi Thanks for the reply, Fishes that are in my tanks are 1 longhorn cow fish,
1 yellow tang, 2 clown fish, 4 blue chromis, 2 domino damsel fish, 1 3 strip damsel, and the mandarin fish of course.

 

[touristsis]

Fish

Fish

Hi Thanks for the reply, Fishes that are in my tanks are 1 longhorn cow fish,
1 yellow tang, 2 clown fish, 4 blue chromis, 2 domino damsel fish, 1 3 strip damsel, and the mandarin fish of course.

I do have a refugium that I've just added literally yesterday. Chetto with about 10 lbs live rocks on the refugium and 1 very small led light that is program to turn on from 9am to 9pm.

 

[Tripod1404]

You probably know this but be careful with the cowfish. If they feel threatened or dies, it releases a toxin that can wipe the tank.


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[pfan151]

And those 3 damsels are some of the most aggressive damsels. As they age they get worse and worse.

 

[ThRoewer]

And those 3 damsels are some of the most aggressive damsels. As they age they get worse and worse.

... and they get quite big...
I had a pair of fully grown and spawning dominos in a 1000 liter tank - all by themselves for good reason.

 

[Javeo]

1000liters for 2 fish !!

 

[ThRoewer]

1000liters for 2 fish !!

It was an old plexiglass tank to hold live rock.

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[Sk8r]

Generally the damsels will be busy with their own politics. I've had that combination in a 100 gallon and they completely ignored the mandy.