mandarin goby questions??? copepods???

[jeffscustomcage]

do i need to purchase copepods for my tank to get the copepods started before i purchace one? my 125 gallon tanks has been running for 2.5 months. got about 85 lbs of sand/crushed coral bash from a friends tank and he put new sand in his tank. i have a refug that has been running for the sam and 30 lbs of sand from the same tank. what would i need to get the tank ready to start putting a mandarin in.

 

[snorvich]

Thanks for asking. I would seed your refugium with copepods and wait a month. I am assuming you have macro algae in the refugium? What other fish are in the tank?

 

[BadSquishy]

Mandarins can be tough to get to eat - preferring live food, but a trick, I read somewhere worked well for me and mine readily takes frozen foods.

The idea is to find a low current corner of your tank, one where the water swirls a bit - and create a small mound of rubble. Mandarins are continual hunters and will spend a great deal of time checking every hole and cranny of the mound.

Use a baster or similar tool and squirt blood worms and or small mysis shrimp into the pile, not deeply but so they can be blown out by the current. Mandarins can be tough to take frozen foods, they want live food, but a blood worm escaping from the pile is pretty hard to resist. After a while they get the idea.

Mine now takes blood worms and frozen mysis readily - but doesn't compete well with other fish so I have ot overfeed a little to ensure that some reaches the substrate before the rest of the fish clear the water column. After the water column clears the more active feeders will out compete the madarin on the substrate.

I rely on my Tongan snails to clean up any leftovers.

Mandarins are very cool fish - he's one of my favourites.


I just noticed that this thread has a mandarin primer - that's probably where I read this - check it out.

 

[jeffscustomcage]

yes i have algae in the refug and about 8 lbs of live rock on top of about 35 lbs of sand ( 7-8 inches deep )
only fish right now is a pair of clowns a rtba fire shrip and hermit crab i was hoping to get a pair of mandarin and then put some more fish in

 

[snorvich]

Personally, if I were going to introduce a pair of mandarins, I would wait until that tank is slightly more mature. But in that case, you should be fine as long as you do not introduce a copepod eater. Mandarins will eat mysis but are poor hunters so a copepod population will enhance your odds of success.

 

[Luiz Rocha]

I've had my mandarin for about 8 months now, so I think I can talk from experience. I will start by saying that mine is in a 30g cube. I waited about 4 months to put it in, and only decided to do so because I had copepods swimming around everywhere in the tank. He was the second fish I put in (first one was a yellow shrimp goby).

He did very well for about 2 months but then started losing weight (I figure he wiped out the copepod population). So, after that I started adding a bottle of live copepods every 2-3 months (did it twice already) and he looks as happy as can be. I also tried everything to make him eat frozen food but had no success whatsoever, so I wouldn't rely on that.

 

[small alien]

If you want your mandy to take frozen well, I think the best thing to do is train them in a small tank or breeder net.

Check out this link.
http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Breeding_the_Green_Mandarin

Quote:
Secrets of Mandarin Feeding

In order for mandarins to thrive in a captive environment, they must be supplied with sufficient high-protein foods.

There are two commonly approached methods and one certainly produces better long term results. It has long been said that in order for mandarins to survive, a large, mature, rock-filled aquarium was needed. The idea being that harpacticoid copepod populations present on a large surface area of live rock would support the near-constant foraging behavior of this fish.

While this method can work to support the dietary demands of a mandarin, it is far too prone to failure in closed systems. (Aquarists often over-estimate the productivity of their reef systems or stock species that compete for the limited crops of microfauna.)

Refugiums help support copepod populations, but all too often mandarins slowly suffer from starvation in such settings. A much more realistic and successful approach involves weaning mandarins off a strictly live food diet and teaching them to accept frozen foods, such as mysis shrimp, that are readily available.

The best method in my opinion was developed by Matt Pedersen of MOFIB (see the links below). The idea is quite simple. Isolate new mandarins in suspended breeder baskets (or small quarantine tanks) and get them feeding on enriched live brine shrimp. Then, introduce frozen brine shrimp and mysis shrimp. After the fish begin sampling the frozen fare the live diet is slowly replaced. Once they are eating frozen fare with vigor they are released into the display tank where their "training" pays off.