Thinking of doing a intank refugium

[rookie07]

I have a 24 gallon aquapod.
have few corals, and 2 clowns.
I want to get a mandarin, so..i thought a refugium would help to cultivate pods.
I kind want a intank refugium, b/c I dont want to make things any bigger.
Im looking at a:
CPR CITR In-Tank Refugium with Rio 50---from marine depot
Could I place this unit in my tank, add some sand or cheato, and let it go?? same lights as the tank uses, same schedule, same everything b/c its in tank.


DOES THIS WORK???

 

[Deanos]

Very few people here would advise placing any-sized mandarin in a 24g tank; even one that has completely matured. Unless you manage to train it to accept prepared foods, it would likely eat all its food sources and starve to death in a tank that small.

 

[rookie07]

Even if I continually add pods?
And/or, wouldnt a refugium really help him with a food source?

 

[JHOV2324]

It would be very expensive to continually add pods unless you cultivate them yourself continously.

 

[rbtwo4]

Buying pods will be pretty expensive

 

[tosiek]

The area that pods can grow and multiply is way too small for any mandarin imo. Even with a fuge in the tank. The rate at which he eats pods vs the spawn/grow time of the pods is whats going to hurt him in the end. He will deplete the population enough so he ends up starving eventually. Also there is no good way to introduce pods into the tank as a food source, fuge will help but its still too small an area for them to reproduce well enough.

Even if you get him on frozen food there is still a good chance one day he will just stop eating and go to fish heaven.

Too many if's, maybe's to make it a good choice that would benefit his survival.

 

[tosiek]

Even if you add pods, or grow them in a separate tank and introduce them, they still need time to settle into the rock.

 

[JHOV2324]

Almost everybody will tell you not to get a mandarin...but I'm sure you'll probably get one anyway. So here is what you should do if you do get one which might help this fish from death.

You can use a smaller tank..but follow the guidelines....

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/breeder2.htm

Good Luck!

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I have a 24 aquapod. An in tank fuge will eat up quite a bit of space and it will not yield enough pods to sustain the diet of any dragonette.

 

[octovox]

I've had success (almost 9 months now) with a pair of Mandarins in a JBJ NanoCube 24. I have a Tom Hatch 'n' Feeder bin the overflow corner surrounded by a big mat of cheato, and I dose the hatchery with pods, rotifers, brine shrimp, vitamins, and phyto. I have a 10g tank that is used exclusively for breeding amphi and copepods that I transfer over with a baster. I keep phyto, rotifer, and brine shrimp cultures going in bottles. The cube had lots of LR and was well-established when the Mandarins went in as all the inhabitants (none of whom ate zooplankton) had just been moved to a bigger tank; the glass was covered with a variety of pods. The Mandarins had been starving at Petco for a week when I broke down and "rescued" them (I had never before or since seen a male-female pair at a LFS, a big reason I couldn't resist) and they immediately gorged themselves and fattened up. I wish the tank were taller so they had more room for their mating dance, but they still do an abbreviated version of it after lights-out sometimes. They have been fine so far, but I have exercised constant vigilance bordering on paranoia concerning their food.
The exposed surface of the cheato gives them a grazing area where they can go food-hunting, but they can't reach all the way in to get pods from the area around the hatchery so there is some breeding going on in there as well as in the external cultures. I have an airstone below the cheato which moves water up through it to the overflow and acts like a chamberless skimmer.
I've tried small pellets and fish roe, but have not actually seen them eat this stuff. I imagine as long as there are pods they are not going to eat dead food.
I spend about $35 every couple of months buying various species of zooplankton and strains of phyto to add diversity. It is a lot of work, but is very enjoyable to lavish these beautiful creatures with all the love I can.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

:sad2: If people stopped buying them the demand would drop so there would be no need to rescue them from petco.

 

[JHOV2324]

COOL...i wish i had a pair....My Mandarin eats mysis shrimp....i got lucky

 

[octovox]

:sad2: If people stopped buying them the demand would drop so there would be no need to rescue them from petco.

You are a much more strongly principled man than I. I kept going in to look at them without the intention of buying until I saw another Mandarin in the same tank die and get picked apart by an Arrow crab. It was too much for me and I caved, rationalizing that in this case the well-being of this otherwise happy couple cowering in the corner overrode the greater good you rightly bring up. I'm just a sentimental push-over, I'm afraid.

 

[ellebelle]

Phil, I hope you are listening carefully to this advice. I cannot possibly recommend against purchasing a mandarin for your tank enough. IF you can find one in an LFS that is actively eating mysis, then by all means buy it. But be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that it is eating mysis. I purchased a mandarin for my 29g tank from an LFS that told me that it was eating cyclopeez. I didn't ask for a demonstration; instead, I happily brought him home only to discover that he was NOT eating any prepared foods. I killed myself (and my tank parameters) trying to provide enough pods for him to eat. I kept him alive for 5 months by regularly purchasing live pods, setting up a fuge, setting up in tank breeding stations, hatching baby brine shrimp and all sorts of stuff. I killed my water parameters with all of the extra nutrients I was adding and my corals started to look like crap. I had to buy a phosban reactor when prior to that I had been fine without one. I eventually decided to sell, but I stressed him out so much trying to catch him that he died anyway.

The only people I know who have had long term success with mandarins in a small tank have:
1) only mandarins in the tank (or some other docile, slow feeding fish like pipefish or seahorses) and breed their own pods;
or
2) have bought them already eating prepared foods.

There are plenty of other beautiful fish that would fare well in a 24g tank. I really suggest you go with one of those.

 

[Deanos]

I've had success (almost 9 months now) with a pair of Mandarins in a JBJ NanoCube 24.

For every story like yours, there are untold others where death is an eventuality. :sad2:

 

[JLAudio]

Why dont you just make some physical adjustments to the tank so you can add a hangon fuge? It wont take up any of your valuable tank room, it will add pods and keep you nutrient levels down. Im not particularly familiar with this cube but im sure id could be modified to do this

 

[rookie07]

the hang on refugium might be the best bet

 

[Deanos]

There really isn't a "best" option.

 

[rookie07]

fair enough.
I guess I have to wait till I find one that eats mysis, or other stuff I can keep frozen

 

[tosiek]

Or you can run into the problem i had, found one actively eating mysis in a LFS, took it home and he ended up so into pod hunting he never touched mysis again. After about a month he cleaned out the pod population (in my 24g while i added pod cultures), would;t touch the mysis and died shortly after.

Even if you get a fuge thats a hang on its still not large enough to produce the amount of pods needed to maintain a dragonet/mandarin. You'll have to teach it to feed on frozen foods and even when you get them on that they have a chance to one day stop eating and they will be dead by the end of the week. There's a few people who have had mandarins for 5-7 months but even less past that in a small nano tank.

People have done it, and you'll probably get a hang on fuge and buy a dragonet and do the pod thing, and phyto dosing, and hand feeding and maybe you get lucky with keeping one alive for a while. But the chances statistically of one surviving in a 24g for more than 7 months is bad. You have a better chance running across a 10 lane highway blindfolded and not get hit =0)

Its just peoples opinions on the matter. :spin: