Trying to save a dragonet
- Thread starter reefbroao
- Start date
CStrickland
New member
Yeah. I'm stocking with Ora/tank raised as much as possible. At least that way when I screw up and kill fish I only have to feel guilt for that one fish, and not a whole species that I'm depleting.
When you try to trade him in, really talk up how he eats fd shrimp. That's worth a lot.
When you try to trade him in, really talk up how he eats fd shrimp. That's worth a lot.
Fair enough, probably the best decision but in the future you will probably need to still cultivate pods if he will be kept in a 40 gallon. I feel that way about anything less than a 100 gallon tank. Just my opinion.
Reef Frog
New member
I've always believed that it's the surface area (footprint) of an aquarium & refugium that determines if an aquarium has the capacity to support the quantity of copepods needed to keep a dragonette well fed.
Larger quantities of water don't necessarily matter since the copepods live their lives on the substrate, not in the water column. Thoughts?
Larger quantities of water don't necessarily matter since the copepods live their lives on the substrate, not in the water column. Thoughts?
MondoBongo
Obligate Feeder Obsessed
i tend to agree with this. larger footprint, more sand, more surface area for them to live and feed.
i would easily take a tank with 1/2 the vertical height, and less over all water volume but a larger foot print, over a smaller footprint with more water volume.
my dragons will hunt on the glass, but far and away spend the majority of their time on the sand and rocks.
You are correct but aquarium size which we all talk about in gallons as you said obviously dictates the amount of live rock and substrate that can be in the system. I said 100 gallons or larger as a generalization as most tanks over 100 gallons are 6 foot tanks. The larger the aquarium the more surface area for organisms. In the example above unless he has that 40 gallon packed with rock or a a large refugium, like another 40 gallon that is only a refugium, then a mandarin will wipe out a population pretty quickly.
I have a 90 gallon with a good bit of rock but my refugium is quite small. I am cultivating pods right now in preperations for a Mandarin or pair of mandarins that i will be getting in the next 2-4 months. even with a 90 gallon with lots of rock i am pretty confident that without cultivating i would not be able to sustain a suitable copepod population in the DT.
As for the refugium. I have seen folks with refugiums that have great pod populations, I mean packed with pods but I am skeptacle of how many actually get sucked up into the DT, especially refugiums that are part of the sump system. I mean its obvious that it is not a large percentage of fuge pods being constantly pushed into the DT or the refugium would not be able to have so many pods in it all the time. Maybe a different story for those with large seperate refugiums that are plumbed back into the return section of the sump or even the DT but this is all just my opinion.
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