Mandarin Dragonet

I've had a beautiful female mandarin for a while now (pic in avatar), however my tank is starting to run low on pods. I have a 6-line wrasse that's hunting all the pods in the display and I can't catch him so I moved the mandarin to the fuge, but that's starting to run low too, the mandarin wouldn't eat anything other than pods so instead of her starving I'm willing to give her to someone with a large established reef tank.

I have what seem like millions of the tiny pods hovering over the sandbed in my fuge but she doesn't seem interested in those, she likes the amphipods and copods....not sure what the tiny ones I have are call.

NOTE: Your tank must be at least 75g, more than 1 yr old, have a refugium, lots of pods in the display tank and refugium, no other fish that feed on pods...oh, and you have to pick her up.

 

well unless you really want to give it away, you could always buy pods to add to the tank. As long as you have plenty running around it won't matter that there are two fish consuming them. And depending on what you feed the 6 line maybe its just looking for some food variety. If you are not already, you could always switch off between different types of foods. Like pellets, mysis, or flakes.

 

Yeah, of cource I would prefer to keep the mandarid but I've been feeding my tank a variety of foods (flake, pillets, frozen cubes, nori) for almost 2 yrs. It's not easy finding copepods around here for sale. Any suggestion on a good on-line place?

 

I am not one of those people who favors any one site or LFS, so definitely not trying to help advertise any particular ones. I go to atlanticseafarms.net alot because he is local and really knows his stuff. Plus I don't have to pay for shipping, but I think his shipping is pretty good compared to most of the online stores too. He sells 500 amphipods for $10. The website says that he only charges exactly what it costs for shipping so no markups. I think 10 bucks is a pretty good deal for 500 of them, but I have no experience buying them in the past. It might also be good to try to find some locals on 3reef or some local reef clubs that may have some insight on stores in your area that offer them for sale.

 

She's probably fine, does it look like she is getting skinny or something? I have a male mandarin in my UW gallon bow with a yellow coris wrasse and like 5 or 6 peppermint shrimp along with 2 cleaner shrimp and the CUC of course..... anyway he was real skinny at the LFS so I decided to save his life, he was going to starve there for sure, he is slowly getting a belly and "gaining weight" butg it seems to take a lot longer for them to fatten up than it does for them to thin down from starvation.... IMO she should be ok up there with the six line as long as you have enough rock...


I would be more than happy to trade you some frags for her but I live in washington.... good luck with whatever you decide

 

I have a 75 DT with a 55g sump, I have ~90 lbs of LR in the DT and I see some pods at night, but I notice the mandarin belly is starting to deflate....just didn't want it to get to the point where she's starving so I put her in the fuge for now....I'll try buying some pods online and give that a try...thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

 

have you offered her frozen foods?
my male mandain loves frozen brine and bloodworms

Im no expert but I wouldn't put her in the fuge because now the copepods have no safe place to hide and reproduce. I would put her back in DT and add pods to the fuge.
They will float into the DT from the fuge once the population stabilizes.

I have 1 male and 1 female ( that I rescued) in a 55 gallon tank with a CPR HOB large fuge. The male is fat and happy and the femlae has gained a tremendous amount of weight.

Do you have rock rubble in the fuge? what about chaeto?

 

I was in the same boat with my target mandarin. I spoke with the owner of the LFS and told him I would like to buy some live pods, and since he orders from ORA he was able to get pods from them.

I continue to bug him to get more in because they sell so fast. He did not think that they were going to sell so well, but once they get an order in, they are usually gone in about 4-5 hours! (and they are reasonably priced at $16 for 500).

Hope that helps.

 

I think reefcleaners.org has pods for sale. They are a really reputable site, so you can check them out. John has pretty good customer service and he is a sponsor here at 3reef