Pipefish and Mandarin Dragonets

I just wanted to check here if this sounds ok to you guys. I want to do a 29 gallon w/ 2 mandarins and 2 dragonface pipefish. I think 29 gallons should be ok, and that would be the only fish, other than maybe an ornamental shrimp and your standard clean up crew inverts. The only thing im really worried about is if their food source depleated quicker than I could bring it back up. this is a project that i will start late summer (august). I have from now until then to plan. I have a 10 gallon sump/fuge with a big clump of chaeto and some reef rubble. I was planning on having a corner in the tank for copepods to breed for them where they cat get to them. plan is, the copepods would get sucked in through the powerhead and breed in both the fuge and the tank. I would give this time to sit without any preditors for a month or two with the tank cycling. Would I need to feed the copepods anything? Is this enough food for them if they refuse forzen foods?

 

Oh, and i could also buy a fresh bottle of pods every 1-2 months if thats necessary!

 

Moving to fish board..

 

2 mandarins in a 29 gallon. Don't do it. You would be adding pods in every day to try and keep up with one of them and its appetite.

 

could i do three pipes and a mandarin, or 2 pipes and a mandarin? I i really want to make sure that the pipes mate up as male female.

 

I'd say you'd want to go larger. Even one mandarin in a 29 is pushing it. You'd need to be patient and find one that is eating prepared food. My suggestion is wait and do something more in the neighborhood of 50 gallons. Then you could have a really nice set up with a mandarin, a couple pipefish, and you could add a couple Seahorses.

 

You wont be able to breed enough pods in you tank to feed all those fish. You would either be seeding you tank every other day [pricey] with pods, or your fish will die off. I found this food [i dont remember the name, but I can tell you when I get home] that is suppoused to feed mandarins other picky fish. I had one mandarin in my 29. and it took him 3-4 months to eat all the pods. With all those pod eaters in that small of a tank will only end in disaster. Just pick your favorite fish and keep that one. I will tell the food brand. My coral beauty goes crazy for it.

 

If you are going to keep an mandarin in there, you will have to either buy pods constantly (VERY expensive) or be willing to set up a separate system to cultivate the pods yourself (not just a fuge, an actual system dedicated to breeding pods). I have a mandarin in a 40 gallon with 100 pounds of rock that accepts frozen and I still have to cultivate my own pods to keep up. Frozen alone is not enough, as mandarins have to eat all day every day in order to keep up with their metabolisms.
It could be done, but you will have to breed you own pods or spend the $200+ to just keep buying them. As for keeping two of them, probably not going to be possible.

 

I have a 40g tank with two pipefish and a large supply of various pods, brine shrimp and rotifers and I can tell you that a 29 will not cut it with ONLY pipes unless they will also eat frozen foods, which isn't always the case.
My Mandarin is in a 90g tank with no fish competing for the pods and I have to add pods at least every 5 to 7 days that I grow separately just for him.

 

Need to train the pipe to eat frozen, not as hard as it sounds really. Its the same as wild caught seahorses take time, patience and money.