Increasing Copepod Population in Tank

Established water

Fish store gave me their water and I believe that that kind of water should be longer than 1 year. I am determined to keep it because I see copepod even though I have only had my tank for 3 days. If the goby is starving how would I know?? I have read articles that disagree with the 1 year rule
. anyways to be sure I am going to go buy a bottle of copepod. You guys will kill me when you find out that I only have an 8 gal

 

I do not believe there has ever been a single murder directly attributable to this site

I say that in case any potential newbies read this thread

if your mandarin starts to look very thin, then its starving, they are constant feeders, always on the look out for pods etc , some can be educated to take other food stuffs, but these are expceptions rather than the rule

buy the pods as you suggest , the good thing about the mandarin being in the small tank is that it will not have to work as hard for the pods, as such the nutritional value it gets from eating them will be greater than the energy it uses in catching them

Steve

 

I suspect that these two steps are mostly responsible for your increased pod population. Not cleaning the glass will draw them out into the open more - they will come out to eat what's on the glass - making them more visable... Which can actually be sort of misleading in terms of population increase. It can also do more harm than good as the pods are more vunerable to preditors on the glass. They normally live in the nooks and crannies of your LR and hide during the day. They come out at night more.

Try increasing the amount of Marine Snow and Phyto Feast (x2) and your pod population will increase even more.

Z

 

I have a Green Mandarin in a 120 gallon. I would give it away if i could catch it. It rarely comes out but is superfat. I would not get one unless you have 100 lbs of live rock.

 

Mandarin Goby

I'll definitely try my best to make sure he's well fed. I keep a close watch on him, turning off the filter to check on the copepod population. I'll buy a bottle of copepod soon to ensure there are enough of them around for him.

 

Search for bucket-o-pods on the forum, it's really the way to go for pod cultivation. i started one about 10 days ago with the hope of eventually getting a mandarin... I seeded the bucket with a cup of water and a hand full of sand from my 'fuge, and in a bit over a week I can draw 100+ pods up in a single turkey baser load. If I squeeze a sponge out I get too many mature pods to even keep track of in a bottle cap.

I saw the little jars of DT's pods they sell at the LFS for $16 a whack...I have like $10,000 worth of pods by that measure. Those might be useful to seed an otherwise dead tank, but a few ounces of live rock rubble, a cup of live sand, and a 5gal bucket full of filter sponge and bath puffs costs about the same.

-Doug