Feeding a Mandarin.

about 4 weeks ago i bought 2 orders of cheato with pods from reefcleaners. since then i have noticed alot of pods in my tank and also in my room mates tank that we set up and began cycling a week ago, that i seeded with several pounds of my LR.

would i have enough pods by now to support a mandarin? any supplementing i would need to do?

 

no you don't have enough pods.. even if you do, the pod population will get wiped out in a few days. mandarin eat 24/7.. you need around 100+ pounds of liverock with seeded pods along with a refugium with a tank that is around a year old.. believe me when i tell you, i have seeded pods twice, have a big HOB refugium and i wasn't able to keep a mandarin alive even after 7 or 8 months, and recently i acquired one and finally it's doing fine.. just fine though.. not great

 

thanks

 

Just wondering how do you know when you have enough pods to support a Mandarin?

 

I have a friend with a 55 and a mandarin with no fuge. he seeded his rock, waited a few months and has had a happy mandarin for over a year. he has since moved everything to a 125 and all is still well.

I have read multiple times you NEED a fuge to support enough pods for a mandarin, but seeing one in person thriving without one makes me think twice.

~Will.

 

you can have an in-tank fuge... a pile of coarse rubble where the pods can hang out and breed but no fish can get into acts as a simple refugium, just like it would happen in nature.

Any the whole "year old established" tank thing seems to be a common "rule of thumb" but in practice doesn't hold up. I've seen/heard of tanks that the owners started with a mandarin in it years ago and they're fine today, other people I have talked to said they tried a mandarin years after their tank started and they died in a month. Ultimately it seems to be more an issue of acclimation to captivity just like any other wild caught fish. There are ways to train a mandarin to take prepared food, but they're no more certain than the hardiness of the specimen.

that said I really want one too, but figure i will wait at least 6-8 months and monitor my pod growth. And I am seeding often from a bucket-o-pods to bulk up the quantity in the tank and fuge.

-Doug

 

You need ALOT of pods! I have an infestation and a sump full of chaeto and macroalgae and my mandarin is barely surviving. I have about 100lbs of live rock in my tank and I think he has eaten almost every single one in the tank! I shake my macroalgae around in the sump to get them to get sucked back into the display. You just have to continually monitor how round the stomach is. I tried setting up the mandarin diner (which I would highly suggest) near a pile of rubble that attracts the pods and he went in it and got stuck, but was interested in the buffet. I had to lift it out of the water and dump him out and he was really scared. So a tip....make sure the jar is about twice as wide as your mandarin.