Mandarin Dragonets Food

[Ace5high]

I wanted to get some feedback from some of you with Dragonets...

My question is, is there anyway to know what sort of copepod population a tank has?

My Reef tank is more than a year old and looks great, plenty of live rock and I can see loads of amphipods in my sump.

I dont run a refugium and have never added live copepods... Should my tank have enough naturally to support a Dragonet and Is there a way to know if there are not enough for feeding?

 

[BL1]

It should, unfortunately there's no way to visually know a tanks pod population. Visually, it will look like a tank goes in cycles. One day you'll look at your tank at night and see thousands of pods running around and a few weeks later you'll do the same thing and see none. It doesn't mean you don't have any pods it's just something a lot of people seem to notice in their tanks as well. As for your tank, in a well established 90g I don't think you'd have a problem keeping a mandarin well fed in one, IMO.

 

[sen5241b]

If you rely on pods to feed an MD, even in a big tank, they will starve. You need to get that fish eating. I have succssfully fed two of them with Ocean Nutrition Marine formula one small pellets and also with fresh Orange sushi roe.

 

[Northstar24]

+1 Sen, I had a mandarin in my 180 with a sump full of caulerpa to grow pods and it lasted about a month. As much as my wife likes these fish, I don't think I'll be keeping one anytime soon

 

[BL1]

+1 Sen, I had a mandarin in my 180 with a sump full of caulerpa to grow pods and it lasted about a month. As much as my wife likes these fish, I don't think I'll be keeping one anytime soon

I have a feeling that something else may have affected yours between my nano and 75g, I've had my mandarin for about a year and a half now. Mine hasn't eaten anything but what's in the tank since I've had him.

 

[Northstar24]

I have a feeling that something else may have affected yours between my nano and 75g, I've had my mandarin for about a year and a half now. Mine hasn't eaten anything but what's in the tank since I've had him.

That could very well be, but now I have two wrasses that are definitely hunting pods (as well as eating what I feed the tank) so I'll probably still pass. They are definitely very cool fish, just difficult to keep IMO. I could never get mine onto prepared foods, I tried the medicine dropper and mine would always dive behind the rocks

 

[wontonflip]

Yeah I have hundreds of huge pods in my sump. But as much as I dream of having a mandarin, unless I find one will eat frozen, I won't even try. I have too many omnivores that pick my rock all day looking for food.

 

[sen5241b]

My MDs grew fat on the food I mentioned. ORA sells tank raised ones that are trained to eat frozen foods.

 

[Ace5high]

hum... interesting replies. As much as Id love him to eat prep food Im not sure he'll take to it...

Is there anything in particular I can do to try to get him to take to prepared food?

 

[phastroh]

Same here. I got one along with the recommended food and it lasted 10 days and my tank is mature as far as the rocks are concerned.

My 6 Line probably hogged all the pods in the tank. I found the Mandarin breakdancin in the corner dead.

I have a refugium that has plenty of rock and chaeto but I can't seem to get a population to grow or at least I can't see them.

 

[Amba]

Try hatching live brine shrimp. Feed him a few for a couple days then start adding a bit of frozen antennae with the live. Every time you feed, add less live and more frozen. After a while he should accept only frozen. Then you can start adding stuff with more nutrition, getting him to eat is the hardest part. Try adding some mysis and bloodworms as well as the brine shrimp. Plus they are super fun to hatch. You can even get an "in tank" hatchery that lets them out on a routine basis.

Also, you can hatch your own pods using mason jars in a windowsill. Mandarin are incredible, and you can get them to breed fairly easily. Keep this thread updated with your progress, it's really interesting stuff.

+1 On the orange sushi roe

 

[Ace5high]

Same here. I got one along with the recommended food and it lasted 10 days and my tank is mature as far as the rocks are concerned.

My 6 Line probably hogged all the pods in the tank. I found the Mandarin breakdancin in the corner dead.

I have a refugium that has plenty of rock and chaeto but I can't seem to get a population to grow or at least I can't see them.

Yikes thats kinda scary!

I really dont have anyone else in the tank that likes pods except possibly my Lawnmower Blenny... for the most part I think he's picking at algae or fallin prep food but the only one I do see picking rock...

 

[Amba]

For the invert tank I am building, a mandarin is the only actual fish that I want in there. I think I'm gonna try and get a 5 gallon and plumb it to my sump and use it to raise copopods. I'll post a drawing in a few.