How long should i wait to get a mandarin??

tanks been up about a month and a half...got about 200+ pounds of live rock...i know i have pods...ive had 2 pod blooms for sure, both times water was cloudy and had the white things all over the glass...but i still cant see any walking around like in my previous tank...

also can how many could i get for my 150.. i would like a pair of spotted and a pair of reds


oh yeah, i also have a fuge with cheato and deep sand bed

 

i would give it at least six months but i am not an expert. four seems like a lot for a 150. Will they have any competition like wrasses for example?

 

I would say maybe two but four wouldn't be sustainable.IMO

 

If you want one sooner, order a bag of pods and a pod hotel from garf.org. do you have a sump? If so u can breed them in the sump and then feed em to the display

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Because you're not new to the reefing game, I would get one now, and train it on Nutramar Ova and/or bloodworms. If you can work your way up to four Mandarins trained on prepared foods, I don't see a problem.

I've got two Mandarins, two Dragonface Pipefish and a seahorse in a 125, and wouldn't hesitate to add more Mandarins if I so desired. Once they are trained, they go from difficult to easy to keep.

I helped a friend of mine set up his first reef tank. Within the first few months, he got a Mandarin, trained it on Nutramar Ova, and it's doing great. If he can do it, you can, too.

 

I started out by placing an inverted shell in the gravel near an area that the Mandarin hung out. With the flow off, squirted some Nutramar in the shell, and eventually he started picking at it. The female followed the males lead.

Now, I just squirt the Nutramar onto a coral, like a favia or acan, and they come right over to feed. That way there is less waste. It doesn't hurt the coral, and the coral gets some food, too. That's an easier way to train, IMO.

It's a gradual thing. At first, they don't eat much, but over time they become more bold. They used to be shy and hide, but now, as soon as the powerheads go off, they're out looking for the Nutramar. They eat right from the feeding tube.

 

Sorry J I accidentally deleted my post. For those who didn't see I asked for a description of the way he trained his mandarin to eat prepared foods.I still think you would need a decent ammount of pods in the tank. At the rate they consume pods feeding them prepared foods in the ammounts necesary to keep them healthy would be a task.Also changing the diet of these fish is a question as well. I would also like to add that I have had one for almost a year and it has not even looked at any prepared foods I have offered it.Maybe I just got a dumb one or the ammount of pods in the tank is such that it doesn't see the point.

 

Did you try Nutramar Ova?

 

I trained my mandarin to eat prepared foods with the following method. I would go to my LFS every time they got a shipment of mandarins. I would then ask an employee to feed them. I would then wait and watch to see if any of them ate. I repeated a number of times until one did, then bought him. Worked quite well really, you just need a bit of patience for this method to work correctly though

 

My LFS won't actually sell you a Mandarin unless they've weaned it.