Pods and Mandarins

[Googz]

Hi,

I have noticed a couple of pods in my filter media. Does this mean that there are more all over my tank? If so, ideally, is there some sort of calculation of how many pods would be sufficient to keep a mandarin fat and happy?

Thanks,

Joe

 

[KathyC]

While there are likely pods in your tank in among the rocks..they are also likely not the type of 'pods' a Mandarin would be eating. There are many different types of and typically Mandarins eat copepods- and those are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.


To sustain a Mandarin your tank should be approximately 100 (or +) G in size and have been set up for at least a year. Mandarins eat about 300-400 pods per day, so a healthy established tank is needed for their proper care.


If your tank doesn't meet those requirements, please do not get one of these beautiful fish! They are probably the fish most likely to starve to death in our hobby
Some will tell you they can be 'trained' to eat frozen foods..that is definitely in the small majority of cases... Once a Mandarin stops eating because it can't find any appropriate food (it's belly becomes concave), no matter how much food you add - even if you added 10 bottles of purchased pods - it won't resume eating and will slowly die.


..getting off my soap-box now.

 

[Googz]

While there are likely pods in your tank in among the rocks..they are also likely not the type of 'pods' a Mandarin would be eating. There are many different types of and typically Mandarins eat copepods- and those are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.


To sustain a Mandarin your tank should be approximately 100 (or +) G in size and have been set up for at least a year. Mandarins eat about 300-400 pods per day, so a healthy established tank is needed for their proper care.


If your tank doesn't meet those requirements, please do not get one of these beautiful fish! They are probably the fish most likely to starve to death in our hobby
Some will tell you they can be 'trained' to eat frozen foods..that is definitely in the small majority of cases... Once a Mandarin stops eating because it can't find any appropriate food (it's belly becomes concave), no matter how much food you add - even if you added 10 bottles of purchased pods - it won't resume eating and will slowly die.


..getting off my soap-box now.

Thanks, my tank is pretty well established over a year. I do not want to add a mandarin without knowing if I have enough pods in my tank. The ones in my filter media seem to be amphipods which are relatively huge, some were about the size of a mysid.
Without a fuge and cheato is there another way gage of the amount of pods living in my tank?
As an aside, my uv sterilizer does not appear to be killing the amphipods; can I assume that it is not depleting the copepod population as well?

 

[KathyC]

What size is your tank?
Is there a lot of LR in there? (a pic might be helpful )


A UV will only kills what swims through it.


Not having a fuge lessens the chances of you having enough as the pods don't have a large protected area to breed to keep the population up.