Copepods or am I way off?

[Klewis]

Hey Klewis, what's up bud..definitely not hijacking the thread.. ithis is where I was hoping to head with it at some point or another... I like the mandarins just would rather not get one if it's going to die.. but if there is a good proven way to train them to eat frozen food, I'm always willing to learn..

Hey Eddie, glad you feel that way, we actualy bought a mandarin a few weeks ago for our 120, It looks like its eating and it hasn't gotten any thinner, but if I could train it to eat prepared food that would be awsome. Maybe I'll start a thread asking that.:scratchch BTW how are the mushrooms coming along?

Does anyone know if adding a bottle of tigerpod would be enough to populate a tank or will I have to keep buying more bottles every week / month / year?

 

[KathyC]

Some Mandarin info...my list, not quoted from anywhere..just from hearing this debate 100 times at least..

1- it is not suggested they be kept in a tank smaller than a miniumum of 100 gallons

2- The tank should be 'established' for at least a year, preferably 2

3-They eat anywhere from 200- 400 copepods per DAY

4-Once a Mandarin's belly starts to cave in (as in it's starving..) many will NOT resume eating even if you put them into a tank FULL of copepods

5- Very few Mandarins can be trained (I use the work 'trained' very loosely..) to eat food other than live food. Consider yourself very lucky if you have one of these!

6- They are probably one of the most beautiful fish we want in our reef tanks, and the fish we are also most likely to kill

7- Two Mandarins of the same sex will probably kill each other and you cannot sex them 100% correctly when they are young.


...so Klewis , you are probably going to be buying a lot of tiger pods for your tank unless it comes close to the info above

 

[Klewis]

Thanks Kathy, I have a 120 reef tank, a sump/refugium with cheato loaded with amphipods. I've already added one bottle of tigerpods a few weeks ago. Are they likely to be all eaten or do they have a chance of populating the tank? I was also thinking of hatching brine shrimp, would the mandarin eat the brine shrimp or will they just be a feast for the other fish? Any additional input would be appreciated. Worst case senario I'll petition Costo to stock tiger pods:tongue1:

 

[masterswimmer]

Thanks Kathy, I have a 120 reef tank, a sump/refugium with cheato loaded with amphipods. I've already added one bottle of tigerpods a few weeks ago. Are they likely to be all eaten or do they have a chance of populating the tank? I was also thinking of hatching brine shrimp, would the mandarin eat the brine shrimp or will they just be a feast for the other fish? Any additional input would be appreciated. Worst case senario I'll petition Costo to stock tiger pods:tongue1:

Mandarins eat copepods, not amphipods or brine shrimp, that I know of.

You'd be unbelievably lucky to get your mandarin to eat anything other than copepods.

The likelihood of the tiger pods reproducing enough to supply enough food for your mandarin is slim to ultra slim.

When you say you've seen lots of amphipods in your cheato, that doesn't help your mandarin since amphipods are not on their menu.

IMO your 120 is too young to be a successful home to a mandarin at this stage.

I wish my post was more optimistic for you, but I'd rather be realistic than 'the glass is half full' hopeful.

Russ

 

[Klewis]

What type of environment is nessecary to populate the copepods? Do they need plants, rock, sand, food source? The 120 was an established system when I got it a year ago, I swapped out the existing live rock in the display tank with other live rock from another established system about 1 month ago, I also used about 40lbs of live rock that I had in the sump prior to the swap. I most likely had very little die off considering all contents were transfered and transported in its orginal water with very little exposure to air and there was a small cycle. Would this be considered a new tank or a semi-established tank?
Next if I take 4 bottles of tigerpods and put them in the tank and the refugium could there be a chance of propagation or would I just be wasting my money? My #1 priority is keeping the Mandarin healthy which will fullfill my #2 priority keeping my wife happy. Any ideas or knowlege from anyone with success with propagating copepod would appreciated.

Thanks again Eddie for your thread. :tongue1:

 

[scarf_ace1981]

What type of environment is nessecary to populate the copepods? Do they need plants, rock, sand, food source?

They need lots of LR so they can hide from predators. They also need time. Time so they can multiply:bunnies:. If there weren't any in the established tank(because of predators, copper, etc) then you still wouldn't have any no matter how long the tank has been up and running.

 

[cthoughts1]

Klewis, the mushrooms are great.. I just dropped them in the tank and they went all over.. lol

Anyhow, from my readings it seems that the best way to accellerate the population of copepods in your tank would be to pour like 5 bottles of them in your tank and wait at least 12 months for them to populate the tank prior to even considering putting a mandarin in there.. Anyhow, although they are very beautiful fish I think I will have to pass on one.. I'd hate to inadvertantly have one starve to death..

 

[masterswimmer]

anyhow, from my readings it seems that the best way to accellerate the population of copepods in your tank would be to pour like 5 bottles of them in your tank and wait at least 12 months for them to populate the tank prior to even considering putting a mandarin in there.

+1

 

[jasony816]

nice pods, how did you catch them, i can never see any only sometimes.

 

[cthoughts1]

nice pods, how did you catch them, i can never see any only sometimes.

It was accidental Jasony, i by no means intended to catch them.. And if I tried to catch them now I probably wouldn't even get close to catching them.. I was actually replacing some carbon that i had in a section of my HOB fuge and while doing so I happened to see them attached to the carbon bag.. I was like wth is that! lol

 

[Solace Aquatics LLC]

Copepod - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepod

Amphipod - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipod

Most definetly Amphidods. I have seen Mandarins take out amphipods, not just copepods, but it is rare. Pretty much any of your carnivorous fish will go after these guys.

Copepods will eat Phyto - If you want to increase your copepod pop, dosing phyto at night (after the lights have been out for a few hours) have seemed to help boost my population. There are also many sources out there to buy cultures of pods so that you too can grow your own copepod population to feed your mandarins.

http://shop.precisionaquatech.com/category.sc?categoryId=11

 

[Paul B]

Amphipods are compressed laterally, like in your picture. I collect them by the billions.

 

[fcamargo6thave]

thanks for the info the search function is great, i had these little pods all over my rock

 

[stedfast82]

I have 2 mandarins in my 110 gal one is as fat as a chapstick tube and the smaller one is getting just as big the smaller one i got a month ago was very skinny he's getting fatter every day the little one is a male . but i have a lot of LR that's over 4 year's cooking in my reef i just love them! but when i got into this hobby no buddy told me they needed to have a very old system so i have killed about 5 till i learned there should be more info on this at the LFS they should tell people the right info but they dont what a shame.

 

[johnny roastbeef]

I had gotten a mandarin when I had my first tank, I knew nothing about pods or mandarins. My little guy was a good eater, he took readily to brine shrimp, the tiny hikari cubed mysis, and was all over blood worms. He ate the worms like spaghetti. The only thing was that the food had to be wafting around the rock, not still, and not free floating. Once he saw the food, he would nail it. Using a baster, I would drop the food right on top of him.

 

[ReefFan]

great thread!

 

[masterswimmer]

great thread!

+1,000,000

I wish you could all see the smile on my face due to the great information being disseminated to all. Now if we could only be assured that everyone took heed to this information, we'd save the lives of countless Mandarins :lol_large

swimmer

 

[fcamargo6thave]

thanks for the info the search function is great, i had these little pods all over my rock

Yea this is a very good thread I seen the pods all over my rocks and freaked out and searched them all over the board and I was very happy to see that the pods are harmless very good information all over the MR forums