Reality of my copepod cultures working?

I have been using this food... RN ARCTI PODS 6 OZ - Aquarium Center, Inc.
it says that even the most picky fish will eat it, it say madarin specificly will eat it. My Coral bandit [which wouldnt eat any procced/ frozen] goes cravy for it. I just got a little madrian last nite, and going to see if he will eat it. But my other fish and corals all come out when I put it in the tank. That company also make other types they have an awsome oysteyer egg/ ovluian [sp could be way off] mix. My LFS swears by the stuff, and all there stuff look health.;D

 

Awesome guys, thanks for the tips!!

I have a 25gal tank with 40lbs LR so I have enough rock for the size. I also plan on SLOWLY adding more rock as time goes on.

 

I use the same stuff, and my manderin is doing great! He's been in there about 3 months now. I bought an aptasia needle, and siphon some arctic out of the bottle, and squirt it in and on my live rocks about 2x a week.
There are pleanty of places for the manderin to eat now, and he is pecking away all the time. Just my 2 cents and experience with this.

 

When yours pecks and eats do you see him "puff" what he doesn't eat? My oscillating dragonet is always pecking too. I know I don't have that many pods yet though.... I found a place right around the corner from my job that just opened that actually stocks DT's copepods.... YAY. I also ordered some online so I'll have the DT's (not delirium tremens :LolLolLol) for right now and once the online order comes in I'll start a culture!!

 

Well I just picked up my DT's live copepods! Relatively unimpressive (looks wise of course because they're so small...) which is exactly what I was expecting, LOL.
Once I get home I'll run another set of tests on the water, make sure everything is copasetic and send them on in the tank!


They're sitting on my desk at work right now, lid off, doing their thing
People keep coming by and asking me about them

 

They are jumpy little buggers aren't they? Very cool to watch. I don't see my manderin spittin out anything, but must be getting some good stuff, cuz his belly looks good, not inverted and is swiming around all the time.
I love the way he just stops, like he has brakes and stays in one spot for a few seconds, before going another inch and stopping again!

 

That's how Hayabusa (he's quick....no, I'm not a motor head ) is. He's just skippin around. So my question is does anyone have a dragonet that "puffs?" Like he takes a mouth full of sand or what have you and the leftovers come out of his gills?

 

Caught the damsel trying to nip at Hayabusa, took apart the tank and brought him back to the LFS (the damsel that is) and Hayabusa is sitting there looking very content with his minion of crabs and pods, LOL!!

 

My manderin dragonet always "puffs" I remember asking the same question and searched the web to find out about there behavior to see if they say anything about that but no one really could answer that question. I honestly think its how he seperates the sand and pods or bugers he catches. Its pretty cool to watch looks like a choo choo train letting out steam. I have my manderin for 11 months 1/2 and he's doing really good. In my 3rd month I manage to buy a small bottle of pods in water and poored like two caps a day untill the bottle was empty and that took about a month. ever since then I always see copods all over my glass and on my live sand and rocks. I never really bother adding any more and he seems to be really happy. Good luck on yours they seem to be really easy to care for and its been my challenge to make sure that he lives so I always watched him day by day to make sure he's doing good.

 

Yeah! His puffing looks like little underwater volcano erruptions because the particles are so fine they hang for a bit.
I'm so glad to hear yours is doing well.
What I ended up doing with the jar of pods was to open the top and float the jar for a bit to acclimate with temp. Before I dumped them in the tank I did another water test. Once the tests were done I poured the pods out close to the dragonet and he was loving life. This morning I saw the little buggers crawling all over the glass which made me happy!!! I'm going to release another 1/2 jar and try to start a culture with the rest.