question about mandarine goby

[JohnnyHildo]

after visiting my lfs today and seeing the gorgeous mandarine fish that helped bring me into the hobby was moved into the display tank and looking good as ever.
i know that i'm nowhere close to where i need to be to properly house one but it did raise a question for me. i've seen copepods available in a bottle that got me wondering if i seeded my tank regularly with them would it be a reliable way to sustain a mandarine while your tank naturally erupts with them or has this product been around for a while and not an effective way to go?

 

[jraker]

probably not. you should have a very healthy population growing in a large refugium. people have done the math, and have concluded that mandarins eat about 8,400 pods per day (about 1 every 5 seconds). they will gobble that bottle right up.

 

[ThRoewer]

after visiting my lfs today and seeing the gorgeous mandarine fish that helped bring me into the hobby was moved into the display tank and looking good as ever.
i know that i'm nowhere close to where i need to be to properly house one but it did raise a question for me. i've seen copepods available in a bottle that got me wondering if i seeded my tank regularly with them would it be a reliable way to sustain a mandarine while your tank naturally erupts with them or has this product been around for a while and not an effective way to go?

1. Mandarin fish are dragonets and not gobies.

2. You will need a tank with a lot of live rock (the real stuff from the ocean) and ideally also a 1/2 inch layer of coarse coral gravel to support a healthy pod population. A refugium is mainly a reserve so they can't be wiped out in the tank.

3. Hatching and partially raising brine shrimp is a good way to support them. Paul B. build a good feeding device.

4. Try to get live Mysis into your tank. You find them in most invert systems of stores, usually in the overflows.

5. Only get small mandarins. They need to eat less and are better at learning to take frozen foods. With some luck they will sooner or later pick up eating frozen brine shrimp and Mysis - all the ones I have and had did sooner or later.

probably not. you should have a very healthy population growing in a large refugium. people have done the math, and have concluded that mandarins eat about 8,400 pods per day (about 1 every 5 seconds). they will gobble that bottle right up.

I don't think it's that much - even a several hundred gallon tank would have a very hard time supporting that for more than a few days.
I have a pair for over a year now in a 25 gallon tank and they get along just fine. If they would need 16,000 pods a day they would have starved to death long time ago.

 

[JohnnyHildo]

fair enough. the fish at my lfs has been there for over a year between the frag tanks and the display, neither of which has a refugium but their fish could very well be the exception to the rule.
they actually do have very small ones there as well now, probably just over and inch long but unfortunately i'd be committing fish homicide if i took one home. 6 months from now perhaps...
thank you both for the replies!

 

[Dkuhlmann]

The frag tanks are probably full of pods.

 

[JohnnyHildo]

The frag tanks are probably full of pods.

most likely. i'll get one eventually but by no means will it be one of my first occupants.