Where to purchase healthy young mandarin.

[Gordonious]

I am hoping to somehow acquire a Green mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus). I have thought about a pair, but not sure I can afford that at the moment. But where would be best to get such an animal? I definitely want to get one very young and healthy. I am thinking of asking an LFS if they would order me one, so I could then watch it/them eat. Though from my understanding they are almost always hungry the problem is getting them enough food.

Btw does any of the LFSs offer any discounts to reef club members?

 

[cmondo]

I had kept a green mandarin for 5 years in my 65 at home, but it had died when I added a 6 line and there weren't enough pods for them both. I had thought that there would be since I had about 150 lbs of live rock in there but that is another issue. Mine would always hover around and poke at the rocks. How much live rock do you have in your tanks? From what I saw in pictures it didn't look like you had much which might be a problem.

As far as finding one, I can't remember where I saw one last. And no clue about the DRC members.

Chris

 

[Gordonious]

I actually typed this earlier, but didn't send it with my original message because I knew if I typed to much many people would be to busy to read and not even start.

My pod population is starting to recover. And I have purchased some tiger pods which I hope to place in a new fuge with in the next to weeks. I will also probably take a quarter or half the bottle to attempt a culture using 2L soda bottles. I understand some of you who purchased a ton of LR and cured it in your tank years ago have massive populations, but I had a tank crash when my tank was young and have had many animals that eat pods when ever they are present. Due to the addition of some new LR I am starting to see a recovery. I have read massive amounts of material about keeping copepods and culturing them and I know I will need a lot.

I was also hoping some of the club members and local hobbyist might be able to help me get the population going. Madtownmax was going to give me a little of little things, but both of us were busy before he left and then with all that happened to his tank and all I never even got to see it.... Actually thinking, I don't know if I have ever in my life seen a reef tank set up accept in LFSs and in thousands of pics and movies online.

 

[cmondo]

Yeah man, good luck with the pod culturing. Iif that works out you, you should be fine. Nick is a good guy, I had seen his tank a couple of times, it was pretty nice. And it is true about the long posts. lol

 

[Gordonious]

I wish last summer hadn't been as busy. I was working 2 jobs for full time and just about drove my self nuts. The lab I was working at, UDs College of Marine Studies in Lewes, had people working in it whose life revolved around pods. There was some that cultured many different types. They also told me of another hobbyist that used to work there and kept sea horses. He would go out and collect pods something like three times a week to feed them. I went out to try to collect them several times when we collected some juvi bass, but I think my timing was off.

 

[kaptken]

Just set up your tank with some live rock and gravel. and a fuge that cascades back into the tank, and you will have enough pods and stuff to feed your madarins. I had a blue mandarin for a long time. but i think my yellow tang chase him right out of the top of the tank. found him dried up on the carpet. ive got some live rock very near the top in that corner, and i think he was grazing when the tang roamed by. it made a perc jump out too,. and you know both of these are not natural born jumpers.

 

[Gordonious]

A blue mandarin? Which species?

 

[SeadooGTI]

I'm going to play the devils advocate here. Why not wait until your system and experience match the livestock you want to keep? You need a self-sustaining pod population before acquiring one of these animals.

 

[Tbor]

For DRC discounts - if you go to the sponsors page on our website, and if your browser supports it, when you hover on the links you will see pop-ups detailing what discounts are offered.

Keeping a pod culture in a garage can be a heck of a lot harder than doing it in a lab. It's still hard there, too!! If you're planning on feeding that way, I would definately try my hand at it for at least a few months to learn the ups and downs before relying on it.

If you want to see some real tanks, we should set up another tank tour for this fall!

 

[Gordonious]

I definitely would like to do a tank tour. Though I am not sure if I would want everyone coming over here if it's during exam week or something, even a couple of people would probably step on stuff and fall all over stuff. (my room gets to be a bit of a mess when life is hectic and it is going to be one he11 of a semester.)

Not sure if I mentioned it in this thread or another, but I did get the chance to visit with Chris (cmondo) and Phil. Both of them are students going to UD, as am I. It looks as if they both will have some impressive tanks when they get them set up again. They are both in transitional stages from smaller set ups. Have to say I as very jealous because as soon as we got to their apartment there was boxes waiting for them with brand new bulbs and other parts for VHO set ups.

I keep my lab a heck of a lot cleaner then most of the labs at the UD campus in Lewes, lol. Though I know the room where they worked with pods was the cleanest for sure. Everything I use for my tanks is clean obsessively. Seriously, honest to god, I think I am border line obsessive compulsive, so at laboratory cleanliness is not a problem.

As I begin to get more corals, or I suppose I should say when because it won't be soon, I would also like to start culturing phyto. I have posted about it before and they said culturing DT's was not the best if I was feeding a reef and they suggested some others. I will have to go back and read, but I also need to post to ask if they think it is a good idea to even culture the DT's if I plan to culture others in the future. Using the same equipment I am bound to end up with mixed cultures and I am not sure if that will be trouble.

Thanks for the link to the sponsor page, I plan to check that out in just a second.

Thanks greatly for the input everyone. I like discussing things on RC and it makes me very happy to know there are knowledgeable hobbyist locally that I may even get the chance to meet.

Jon

 

[kaptken]

Jon, i have sometimes thought of doing my own green water and rotifer cultures. but just don't have the space. or time. but while looking into it i found this place in florida that sells pretty much what you need to start. this page is for seed stock. they have little kits to. but you know how to set it up, so seed stock is perfect and inexpensive. the resting rotifer cysts sound practical. just get a small bottle and use a few to start each culture. or seed from one to the next batch.

https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/agora.cgi?cart_id=8080598.16131*tE6q-7&product=LIVE_CULTURES

Im sure there are other places out there with supplies too.

 

[Gordonious]

WOAH! Start culture of freshwater copepods. 2lbs $5!! I would have to assume right off the bat they couldn't be too high quality, but definitely worth further research. There is a book out, I forget who it is buy, but it's called culturing copepods. I've took it out of our school's marine bio library twice, but only made it through a couple of pages. Hard to study copepods when your hardly passing chemistry and should really be studying that. Thanks keptken. I've been to a bunch of different sites, but don't remember seeing those for sale. I may have been on the site when I was looking for just copepods and not yet researching phyto. Of course I find out culturing phyto is a good idea if your doing copepods.

Jon

 

[kaptken]

uuhhh, wasn't that 2 pounds of live in water for $14 of moinia? No matter, they have good starter stuff. salt water pods don't seem to be much trouble at all. just have a nice dirty fuge tank with some grungy sand and macro and they grow bazonkers. feed a little ground up flake or frozen BS. the micro algea just seems to grow in that environment. so the young ones get fed too. thats the good part about a fuge that returns to your reef tank. my old fuges had usually maintained some rotifers too. they hang on the glass a lot where you can see them with a magnifying glass.

if i recall any other source sites, i will post em too. rotifer culturing to feed your corals seems to be a lost art.

 

[Tbor]

I had phyto cultures going in my garage for a little over a year. It's very easy and can be done with pretty much no special equipment. I just had a series of 2L soda bottles, an air pump & shop light. Trust me Ken, you have room for it. I got all my stuff from Aquaculture Supply in New Orleans, whose website I can't seem to find anymore. But they have just about everything you could think of from lab glassware, to cysts, to 300gal troughs. If you're serious, Jon, I still have a some unused stuff you might as well have for a frag - I'm not using it anytime soon.
I've tried culturing DT's, and yes, it works with a couple of caveats. First of all, it doesn't really stay DT's (which is a blend of several different algae species), it will quickly become a mono-culture. But this isn't really a big deal. The bad thing is that it just isn't as sterile as the culture disks you buy (basically a starter grown on a petri dish). Over time (a short time) your DT's culture will become contaminated with diatoms or some other obnoxious pest. This was my experience anyway. But maybe you can keep it cleaner, it's worth a shot.
I planned on doing rotifers, but never got around to it. I have some resting rotifers and roti-rich and stuff I never used either. The thing about roifers is that they're a major PITA!! You have to keep the cultures meticulously seperate from your phyto, otherwise they will contaminate it and eat you dry. You also have to keep their numbers in check, otherwise you won't be able to sustain their feeding requirements and the whole culture will crash. If you're just doing it to feed your corals none of this is a big deal. If you've got hungry fry that are relying on the food source, it is a big deal.
From what I've read, pods are much easier than this. But while they'll multiply pretty well in your tank, you still need to put more effort in if you want it to be a culture that you're doing some serious harvesting from for food.
A great book is the Plankton Culture Manual, by Hoff & Snell. You can probably buy this from any Aquaculture supply house. It has great details and drawings about systems for just about any little critter you can think of.

 

[Gordonious]

I have a stack of 2L soda bottles and 5-6 random air pumps including a massive whisper, the new blue design that’s supposed to be almost silent. Rotifers is something I have never looked into much. I've only kept one species of coral which I acquired just a couple months ago and I have never had any marine fry or even eggs of any sort. If I ended up with a mandarin pair I would definitely have to give a shot at them as well as keep some other food supplies handy just in case.

Seems as if there are a couple of things I may need to pick your brain about Tbor. BTW how do I go about getting a membership card?

 

[Tbor]

Well, if you join up at the next mtg you will get one. If you want one sooner for discounts, you can drop by my place - I sent you a PM.

 

[dynagirl]

I just got back from Pacific East Aquaculture and they can put you on a call list for when they
get some mandarins in...they said they even figure out which ones will eat frozen...I put myself on that list....

 

[Gordonious]

Awesome. I will have to do that when I am ready. I haven’t been there yet, but I'm almost sure I will like there live stock, better then I have liked the other stores.