Mandarin in a 29 gallon.

my question is what would i have to do to be able to keep a mandarin in my 29 gallon. i have chaeto in my HOB filter and some spread out in cracks and crevices in my DT. i dont have pods but would buy some to sed the tank with then wait a month or two until i have a good pod population. is this good enough or will i have ot go to more drastic measures? i have a ten gallon set up that is gonna be a frag tank but could be a frag tank/pod farm if needed. What do you think?

 

Only if you do one of 2 things.
1) Have a separate pod farm, in which you grow your own abundant store of pods.

2) Buy live pods constantly from a supplier (will get expensive)

Otherwise, forget about it.

 

my lfs said that they barely get mandarins in that are on prepared foods. i might make my ten gallon into a frag/pod tank. how hard would that be?

 

i doubt you will have enough pods to sustain a mandrin. will do best if you had a refugium with lots of chaeto. by the way i find people waste their money when buying pods. much of what you get are already dead. you might as well buy a bunch of chaeto. it will be loaded with pods.

if no refugium. try to make a small pile of rubble somewhere in the tank. this will give the pods a place to cultivate and the mandarin a place to always find food.

ive thought about getting a faily large shell and to put some sand and chaeto in it. just another way for a pod farm in the DT

 

how can i tell if the pods are still alive when i bought them. i got chaeto from reefcleaners but so far i havent found any fun stuff in it yet.

 

gexx some will be live but many more of them are dead. which means your dumping dead matter into the tank. good fish food but what dosent get eaten will likely rot.
im sure there are pods in the chaeto you bought.

you could try to take a small amount of chaeto and put it in a shot glass with some tank water. wait a bit and see if you have any pods on the glass

 

oh and the more live rock in your tank the better chances for a pod population to increase

 

gggrrr more live rock. ok well thanks and ill try the shot glass thing. just get chaeto and a small glass leave for a while say one hour then take the chaeto out?

 

okk so if your set on having a mandarin i would get a fuge and get alot of chaeto and copepods. make sure there not tigger pods though. also more live rock and set up a rubble pile in your tank near where your refugium dumps water back into the tank. i would wait about 3 months before getting one and i would still have serious doubts if you could keep one alive. check at night and see if u can see any pods on the glass or rocks

 

i cant see any pods in the chaeto with the glass bottle trick. at night i cant see any either. ive looked before and didnt find any.

does anyone live in indiana that would like to contribute some pods?