culturing pods?

[lilduud]

any tips? my mandarin eats frozen brine well but i really wanna fatten him up.. and its annoying to have to put food in all his favorite places everyday.i will be setting up a refugium but i mean a culture to have on the side to add to the refugium...

 

[yote]

The best thing to do on that one,is to make a few small "pod " piles from some rock rubble.That will give what pods you already have a place to breed.
Or you could get some of Biffs Cheato and place in your tank.It'll have all kinds of lil critters in it.:D

 

[sen5241b]

The best thing to do on that one,is to make a few small "pod " piles from some rock rubble.That will give what pods you already have a place to breed.
Or you could get some of Biffs Cheato and place in your tank.It'll have all kinds of lil critters in it.:D

1+

I have several pod piles made from small pieces of branch coral I picked off the beach. But put good flow on the pod piles as the small spaces in them might become detritus traps. It seems the addition of macro-algae also increased my pod population.

Recently I saw my MD eat a bristleworm. Bit him right in half. My old MD ate them also.

I have also seem my MD eat frozen fresh-water blood-worms. I play with the flow to make the blood worms wiggle.

 

[lilduud]

yea my mandarin is beginning to eat more frozen... i was told by the petco i bought him from that he ate completely frozen... wrong... ive had to train him onto it with live baby brine in a feeding jar... i now use no live and hes eating some of them.
the issue now is that he is almost overwhelmed by the food in the jar.. he only likes finding a piece at a time so i have a dish of brine that i slowly hide in his favourite spots through the day... obviously annoying but im trying to fatten him up after being so skinny at petco... slllooooowww progress... any diet tips...

 

[Gigaah]

If you plan on culturing pods for your mandarin at some point just make sure you gets ones they will eat. There are a bewildering array of copepods species of all different sizes.
Some are easier to raise than others as well.

I've just started cultuing Apocylops panamensis(these are free swimming) which are VERY tiny for uber baby mandarins and Tigriopus califoricus(tiger pods) for larger mandarins. I've witnessed personally All 4 of my mandarins and my scooter blenny eat the tiger pods. They are fairly easy to culture too..they will eat anything..even finely crushed flake food.

Pod Piles are quite effective as well. They will be come detrius traps as noted by others with out some flow behind them, even so they tend to collect junk. I break down my piles every month or so and move all the yucky sand out for my sandsifting star and sand sifting gobies to take care of. If you can get get a pile of rocks in a refuge that would be good too...if you can manage to get some algae growth on your pod pile that will help a lot too.

 

[lilduud]

Thanks gigaah that's great news because I wa planning in using tiger pods. I found some at my lfs. And I am fugeless at the moment so I'm going to be culturing them on the side... As far as that I'm being told that just a container with fresh saltwater and a food source will suffice... No areation?

 

[sen5241b]

Try feeding him orange sushi roe.

 

[little_fish]

Just a word of caution, the tiger pods have been known to kill small fish and fry because they will attach to the fish and fry with their claws, killing them.

 

[lilduud]

Thank you... I think however after my chromis are out, the remaining fish will be alright as thy are aggressive pod eaters.

 

[Gigaah]

I'm not sure about air. I use them it in mine. It might not be required tho but its probably a good idea.