mandarin fish
- Thread starter convict_frenzy
- Start date
Mandarins usually need to be kept in a bigger aged system. Without copepod(im sure there are like none in your tank) they will slowly starve to death. Once and a while mandarins might eat live brine shrimp or cyclopeez...but like Camaro said a refugium is your best bet. In the mean time I would bring it back to the store.
i've been feeding my tank with cyclop-eeze for my rbta & clownfish. i dunno if my mandarin takes it as well. i guess i have to make some sort of a refugium at the back compartments of my nano cube with the hope of introducing copepods. do u guys have any idea how i can introduce them? what sort of things do i need to put? thanks.
I find it hard to believe your mandarin is plucking cyclopeeze out of the water column, so if it's getting any, it will be what it finds on the substrate/live rock.
I find it hard to believe you'll have enough space in your tank to keep enough live rock to keep your manadarin going. The volume of refugium required to keep enough pods going to feed the guy will likely take up most, if not all of the tank. You have 3 options
1.Buy pods, or attach a large enough refugium, which is likely a 10 gallon.
2. Return fish to larger tank (either yours or elsewhere)
3. Starve it to death, which is what you're doing now.
There is a guy in the book Ultimate Marine Aquria who has 3 or 4 similar dragonettes in a 40 gallon, however if you look at his setup, it is a dream for them, with a LOT of live rock ,and a gallon refugium I tihnk, and even then he doesn't recommend it.
I find it hard to believe you'll have enough space in your tank to keep enough live rock to keep your manadarin going. The volume of refugium required to keep enough pods going to feed the guy will likely take up most, if not all of the tank. You have 3 options
1.Buy pods, or attach a large enough refugium, which is likely a 10 gallon.
2. Return fish to larger tank (either yours or elsewhere)
3. Starve it to death, which is what you're doing now.
There is a guy in the book Ultimate Marine Aquria who has 3 or 4 similar dragonettes in a 40 gallon, however if you look at his setup, it is a dream for them, with a LOT of live rock ,and a gallon refugium I tihnk, and even then he doesn't recommend it.
If your interested in some reading on the Mandarinfish I saw an artical in the "Marine Fish and Reef USA 2005 annaul" magazine; Actually they made the cover. Nice looking fish, but very hard to keep.(so i've heard, I only have a 40 gal and I wouldn't even think of putting one in this small a tank) Hope all works out for you, but I would really re-think having one in that small of a tank. It's definatly not in the fishes best interest to do so.
Try this..... http://www.reefermadness.us/Ocean_pods.htm This would be a good food while you are culturing.