Mandarin goby Update

Well, I have had my mandarin for about 5 months now.
I have a 55 gallon tank with about 75 lbs of live rock in it and it has been set up since March of this year.
I don't have a refugium so I have been trying to culture Copepods in a small 2.5 gallon tank. well I havn't been real successful.
Tonight, I was feeding my corals and fish some frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms and all of a sudden the mandarin goes crazy and starts eating the frozen stuff!
I was so excited. Now I don't feel like I HAVE to have a copepod culture although I am still going to try to get one started and I know he won't starve.

I also have a few questions about feeding him live stuff. Do you think he would eat rotifers? or would they be too small? what about live brime shrimp? since he eats the frozen he should eat the live right?
They just seem like they would be easier to culture than copepods are.

 

Frozen foods help, but it will still not be enough. Mandarins need to feed pretty much all of their waking hours, and that can not be accomplished with normal feedings.
You can't really feed live brine shrimp continually to a reef tank, because of the risks of the cysts and then the resulting disease issues. They also won't survive as long as the pods. Pods are still really the only way to go.

 

ok. any tips on raising pods then?
I can't seem to get them to reproduce.
I have been feeding them DTs phytoplankton but have run out and don't have LFS to get some more from.
Im thinking about starting my own phyto culture to help solve this problem.

 

When I did mine, I just did it in a 5 gallon bucket. Nothing but water, an airstone, heater, and some kitchen sponges (the netted kind). I fed them phyto, flake, and little bits of whatever else the fish get to eat (mysis, brine, etc). What type of pods did you start your culture with?

 

I used Reef Pods that Reefcleaners.org sells
I have a light, airstone, macroalgae, but no heater.

 

Just some tips for your pod farm, turn off the lights (they prefer the darkness), replace the macroalgae with one of those shower loufas, and put in a heater. That should help your population. You can throw in a hermit crab once in a while to help clean up any uneaten food.