quick mandarin question
- Thread starter ahullsb
- Start date
Mandarins pick at the rock looking for food. Weather it's eating depends on if you have a good pod population. It may be eating, but is it enough? Watch the belly of your mandarin, if it starts to look thin, it has either depleted your pods, or there were never enough to start with.
ahullsb
New member
I'm keeping an eye on it. I bought a tiny one so its tough for me to compare it's belly to the enormous fat and happy ones I see on here. Likely would I be safe adding pods every few months or so? Oh I did a ton of research so I don't want to get blasted please. I have the necessary amount of rock and hiding places etc. The sump seems to have quite a few. But I am more concerned about the long run obviously
Look in the corners of your tank, and at the edges of your rock an hour after the lights go out. You should see pods running around. If that is what you see, just check for the same conditions every few weeks. If it diminishes rapidly, then you can add pods to the tank. There are quite a few places to purchase them now.
feed phyto to your tank after the lights go out. This is pod food: it will ensure pods multiply, and your sponges will grow hand over fist; also, keep a rubble pile or two that pods can breed in. If you can get a refugium hooked up to that tank it will be even better. Get a big ball of cheato with a good light in a refugium, and you can keep your little mandy in pods enough to keep her very well.
Duddly01
New member
Get some cheato in your sump or a fuge with a 6500K bulb. It seems to work great at keeping the pod population up. I also dose live phyto every day as well in my 50 gal. Now if you really want to fatten him up get him to eat pe mysis. The whole mysis seems to be more acceptable for mandarins that otherwise won't touch dead food. It's worth a try. I have this spotted mandarin in a 24gal. nano with a couple seahorses that pigs out on pe mysis twice a day with the horses. Think he is eating well enough?
papagimp
COMAS Rocks!
Look at the madarin from above (as best as you can anyways). You'll notice a definate pinched appearance in the mid section when they are starving. Unfortuantly, many will not recover once they reach this point, so if you have doubts as to the ability of your 55g to sustain the mandarin, then I would definatly add pods once a month or so, until there populations increase sufficiently.
Duddly01
New member
Are you talking about the picture I posted of my spotted Mandarin? He has a fat face, double chin and a beer belly. Not pinched at all, very very round! I don't see how you get the impression otherwise. I'll try to post you a better picture of his big fat stomach, but he is certainly not anywhere close to starving. You can actually see the beginning of his pudgy stomach just behind his chin.
This is what his face looked like when I first got him:
Krazy
In Memoriam
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9756841#post9756841 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Duddly01
Get some cheato in your sump or a fuge with a 6500K bulb. It seems to work great at keeping the pod population up. I also dose live phyto every day as well in my 50 gal. Now if you really want to fatten him up get him to eat pe mysis. The whole mysis seems to be more acceptable for mandarins that otherwise won't touch dead food. It's worth a try. I have this spotted mandarin in a 24gal. nano with a couple seahorses that pigs out on pe mysis twice a day with the horses. Think he is eating well enough?
Beautiful Mandrin
Mine pigs out on mysis too
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