Mandarine Goby

Yes, dollarbill---go to Reef Nutrition, in our sponsors list. Their service is excellent.
 
Ok they are firstly call "Copepods" and one of the best places is PremiumAquatics.com 99% of these all come from the same place and so it is just an issue of "how fresh" are the bottles. You will get your first bottle and fall over as it looks like you bought some easter basket grass and water. The pods take a week or 2 to start propagating. Trying to purchase these things strictly for feeding is a lost cause (it will bankrupt you)

Putting a Mandarin in a 29G is just about a death sentence and common sense should stop most from trying that. Yes there is always the exception (i have just yet to see it myself in person)
 
Ill post a video of when I get my camera charged of my healthy Mandarin eating :) I can shoot widescreen HD format to if you want.
 
sort of like this, I know a guy that jumped over a car going 120mph. It was a lamborghini and was filmed for a tv show.

Now the point is he did it. Would anyone else be able to do it?
Sure probably lots of people can jump straight up and have a car drive underneath them at a high rate of speed.. But if 100 people tried it because he did, maybe 1 would survive unscathed?

So people should run out, buy a fish, and count on it to survive in a 30 gallon tank because 1 did (and actually the real test is a year from now)

If you are going to buy a fish, have a proper home for it first. Responsible husbandy just seems to dictate that a fish that eats a specialized diet should have proper amounts of this diet available. (dumb concept huh?)

But then again captive humans have been known to eat worms, rats, cockroaches or anything else they can to keep from starving to death.
 
Becareful if you have a large enough anemone in your tank that could eat him. Mandarin gobys are slow and clumsy and an anemone will easley catch him and eat up.

I learned my lesson on that when mine did not last over night.
 
Not a where to "buy" link for copepods but to learn how to "grow" them or keep a substantial supply in my tank. It looks like I cant afford to buy them anyway. Any info? thanks. db
 
I remember seeing some copepods on my glass weeks ago, but havent seen them since. I can definitely see amphipods, isopods and mysis shrimp running around in both my tank and the fuge ( I have a 55 gallon with a 15 gallon fuge and 10 gallon sump) Do you think that I'd have enough pods for a mandarin to survive?
 
I have a 52 and have concluded my tank needs help from a fuge in the sump. I've been buying a monthly 4 bottle supplement. But the mandarin is getting plump.
 
Get a flashlight and in the middle of the night like around 1:00 AM shine it in the tank on your substrate and if you see hundreds of copeods scattering around then you should have enough.

Atleast that is what my LFS told me to do and boy did I have a lot of them.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7435036#post7435036 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
I have a 52 and have concluded my tank needs help from a fuge in the sump. I've been buying a monthly 4 bottle supplement. But the mandarin is getting plump.
Click to expand...
twenty dollar fish with a hundred dollar a month habit :)

Are you having any success yet with prepared foods?
 
Bottles of pods run about $25 plus shipping.

An alternate way to acquire a pod supply is to buy chaeto macroalgae. If it comes from a healthy tank, it generally has a good supply of fauna as well.
 
buying pods is not a solution , there is no way you can buy enough copepods to fill their diet. most tanks have them already and have no need to even buy a starter population.

To insure these guys long term health the best solution really is a fuge where the pods can multiply in safety and have no risk of predators wiping them all out. The hang on ones work extremely well . throw some live rock rubble and cheato in and you have a perfect environment for pods to reproduce and you will never have to worry about your Mandarin.

I think you could have a mandarin 3-4 months after setting up a hang on fuge.

I could have this wrong but "I think" copopods reproduce by splitting , they also have eggs but most reproduction in the tank is from division. so this is one of those things where if you throw a bottle of 1000 pods in with a Mandarin he will most likely eat all 1000 of them that day. now if you wait every week they will divide and 1000 will be 2000 , 4000, 8000, 16000,32000, 64000 ..... within a few months you have millions (if they have enough habitat) that will divide every week . That is a sustainable population no matter how many your Mandarin eats.


BTW never count on getting one that eats prepared foods allot of them will eventually do it but it seems only the healthy ones that have plenty of pods will sample it and even then they wont seak out food at dinner time like the other fish they just eat what they come across. Id guess its less than 1/100 that will eat any prepared foods when you get them home from the LFS.
 
reef rubble is actually better or even better macro algae. A couple pieces of live rock just do not provide all the nooks and crannies.

A pile of old snail shells, broken coral bits or any large media works pretty good. you know a pile of your bioballs would probably work well too
 
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