Another Mandrian Goby question

[CoralDanimal]

Yes, the wrasse picks at the rocks all day. I do have a sump , and have briefly read up on reproduction of pods. Do you believe the tank will not be able to sustain enough pods without me adding pods regularly, even with them both be eating frozen food?

I have a Red Sea Reefer 425 with a biota mandarin and I also have wrasses (Yellow Corris, Leopard) that compete with pod competition. Mandarins are my favorite fish so I definitely understand where you're coming from and I think it's great you're doing research ahead of purchasing. Although my mandarin eats frozen cyclopod, I have to culture copepods to keep up with the mandarin. My mandarin is without a doubt the most high maintenance & expensive fish I have. My tank is a bit over a year old and I've probably spent hundreds of dollars trying to keep my tank's pod population well stocked for the mandarin.

To save my pocket I've started to culture pods in my garage using this very easy method. 5 gallon bucket, heater, phyto from reef nutrition, and then every 2 weeks you harvest half the bucket, siphon out the bottom, and put fresh saltwater back in and it's basically endless pods. I actually have 3 of these and every week I harvest one of them and my mandarin is finally fat/happy

 

[afboundguy]

Okay, I just reread what you posted, I should be okay even if I don’t add the pods... as long as both are eating frozen. Am I reading that correctly?

My leopard wrasses was eating frozen at the lfs which is why I brought her home. Absolutely beautiful fish. I’ve had her now for about 3 months. The mandarin will be my last fish I add.

You could possibly be ok without adding pods once you tank gets super mature IMO. The easiest and safest way would be to start phyto and pod cultures and supplement your pod supply every once in a while. Once they're up and running the cultures are pretty easy as long as you sterilize the phyto stuff properly then as @demeyer2 stated you pretty much get an endless supply of pods without having to spend an arm and a leg one the small bottles of pods...

 

[OrionN]

Okay, I just reread what you posted, I should be okay even if I don’t add the pods... as long as both are eating frozen. Am I reading that correctly?

My leopard wrasses was eating frozen at the lfs which is why I brought her home. Absolutely beautiful fish. I’ve had her now for about 3 months. The mandarin will be my last fish I add.

Your tank is just marginal size for Madarin. I think a Red Sea 350 is about 70 gal. You should have a refugium and should have substrate in your tank that is coarse, and porous live rock. These measure will provide safe shelter area for pods they can live and breed in. Don't forget to seed you rank with fauna in the form of good live rock and live sand. IMO, pods in the bottle is better than nothing but often you need much more variety. Diverse fauna is much better for long term stability of the tank.
If you want to keep Mandarin, you should avoid further wrasse other than Flasher and Fairy, avoid Dwarf Angels, or any other "pod" hunters.

 

[JAMreef]

I have a Red Sea Reefer 425 with a biota mandarin and I also have wrasses (Yellow Corris, Leopard) that compete with pod competition. Mandarins are my favorite fish so I definitely understand where you're coming from and I think it's great you're doing research ahead of purchasing. Although my mandarin eats frozen cyclopod, I have to culture copepods to keep up with the mandarin. My mandarin is without a doubt the most high maintenance & expensive fish I have. My tank is a bit over a year old and I've probably spent hundreds of dollars trying to keep my tank's pod population well stocked for the mandarin.

To save my pocket I've started to culture pods in my garage using this very easy method. 5 gallon bucket, heater, phyto from reef nutrition, and then every 2 weeks you harvest half the bucket, siphon out the bottom, and put fresh saltwater back in and it's basically endless pods. I actually have 3 of these and every week I harvest one of them and my mandarin is finally fat/happy

I didn’t realize how much maintenance goes into harvesting pods. I will look into it a little more. Thank you for your information!

 

[CoralDanimal]

I didn’t realize how much maintenance goes into harvesting pods. I will look into it a little more. Thank you for your information!

Similar to water changes and other routine maintenance, you develop a system and it becomes easier. I probably spend one hour a week harvesting and then maybe an extra hour a month to siphon/refresh the cultures. Once the cultures get going, the harvesting is really fulfilling. When you spend $40 for a jar of pods online and then you put them in your tank and don't see any on the glass a week later, it's a tough & expensive pill to swallow. When I harvest one of the cultures (I recommend Tisbe pods) with this sieve ($12.95 from Brine Shrimp Direct), it's thousands of big copepods visible from the naked eye - much bigger than the standard online order I can do it every week. The up front cost is only a bit higher than the standard online copepod order, but the ROI is definitely there if you tend to the cultures.

 

[afboundguy]

Similar to water changes and other routine maintenance, you develop a system and it becomes easier. I probably spend one hour a week harvesting and then maybe an extra hour a month to siphon/refresh the cultures. Once the cultures get going, the harvesting is really fulfilling. When you spend $40 for a jar of pods online and then you put them in your tank and don't see any on the glass a week later, it's a tough & expensive pill to swallow. When I harvest one of the cultures (I recommend Tisbe pods) with this sieve ($12.95 from Brine Shrimp Direct), it's thousands of big copepods visible from the naked eye - much bigger than the standard online order I can do it every week. The up front cost is only a bit higher than the standard online copepod order, but the ROI is definitely there if you tend to the cultures.

Going to echo this. I only spend about 2 hours a week but that also includes phyto and white worm cultures and baby brine shrimp hatchery cleaning. I do it once a week and it's an easy routine now and definitely rewarding when you pull out all those pods with the sieve and it's self sustaining.

 

[JAMreef]

Similar to water changes and other routine maintenance, you develop a system and it becomes easier. I probably spend one hour a week harvesting and then maybe an extra hour a month to siphon/refresh the cultures. Once the cultures get going, the harvesting is really fulfilling. When you spend $40 for a jar of pods online and then you put them in your tank and don't see any on the glass a week later, it's a tough & expensive pill to swallow. When I harvest one of the cultures (I recommend Tisbe pods) with this sieve ($12.95 from Brine Shrimp Direct), it's thousands of big copepods visible from the naked eye - much bigger than the standard online order I can do it every week. The up front cost is only a bit higher than the standard online copepod order, but the ROI is definitely there if you tend to the cultures.

Wow that’s awesome! Do you have a link or book you recommend for me to read to get a better understanding on how to accomplish culturing these guys?

 

[CoralDanimal]

Wow that’s awesome! Do you have a link or book you recommend for me to read to get a better understanding on how to accomplish culturing these guys?

Definitely! Here's the main article.

If I were to summarize, what you need:
• 5 gallon bucket. Article recommends putting it on a pedestal to make it easier to siphon from down the line, which I agree with. Keep the water between 1.019 to 1.021.
• Phyto. Article recommends phyto cubes, but I've had a lot of success with phyto algae paste from BSD or live phyto from Reef Nutrition. I do not recommend Algae Barn's phyto because it's very diluted compared to these two. When feeding phyto: "You want to add enough phytopaste so you can’t see the bottom of the bucket, but not so much that it is a really dark green color." which is the rule I follow.
• Pods. Not all pods are the same. I've had a lot of success with Tisbe pods and very little success with Tigger pods (significantly slower reproduction). Float for 10 minutes, then put in the water.
• Air. This is crazy, but I've tried it with and without a low flow of air and didn't see any notable difference.
• Heat. If you keep it in your house, you probably don't need it. I keep mine in the garage so I have heaters set to 70 degrees, but based on the article it could probably be as low as 60 as well.

The article has a maintenance routine detailed out, but here is mine:
• Once a week I harvest from one of my 3 cultures by siphoning along the edges of the bucket through a sieve and into another bucket. Depending on the sieve size, you might only be catching adults and you might be wasting smaller copepods so another option is to just drag the sieve across the surface and around the edges.
• I rinse the sieve with fresh tank water to wash out all the phyto junk and then put the new pods in the tank. I typically feed the tank when I do it so all the fish are distracted.
• Once a month I'll go in and siphon the junk out of the bottom of the bucket. Typically 1-2 gallons worth and then I replace with fresh saltwater and that's it! Just make sure to top off with fresh water or use a loose fitting lid which traps the condensation.

 

[Waboss]

I used to culture pods in a very similar manner. The biggest difference is I used large "punch/drink" containers that were acrylic (so I could see through it) and had a spigot at the bottom. So I didn't have to siphon, I just swirled the water a little to get some movement and opened the spigot into a sieve with a catch bucket under it. Then just rinsed the sieve in the tank to "release" all the pods.

 

[CoralDanimal]

I used to culture pods in a very similar manner. The biggest difference is I used large "punch/drink" containers that were acrylic (so I could see through it) and had a spigot at the bottom. So I didn't have to siphon, I just swirled the water a little to get some movement and opened the spigot into a sieve with a catch bucket under it. Then just rinsed the sieve in the tank to "release" all the pods.

I love this idea. Going to order one right now and give it a shot!

 

[vlangel]

Where did you folks get your starter culture?

 

[CoralDanimal]

Where did you folks get your starter culture?

I honestly can't remember. I've ordered tisbes from from Algae Barn, Atlantic Biotechnology, and Pod Your Reef and they're all good IMO. Since I have 3 cultures, I really should have done an A/B/C test for each provider to see which ones had the best reproductive rates.

 

[vlangel]

I honestly can't remember. I've ordered tisbes from from Algae Barn, Atlantic Biotechnology, and Pod Your Reef and they're all good IMO. Since I have 3 cultures, I really should have done an A/B/C test for each provider to see which ones had the best reproductive rates.

Thank you for the info.

 

[afboundguy]

Where did you folks get your starter culture?

If you're near the northeast you can try these guys I've had great luck with them https://www.agcorefishfood.com/stor..._Tisbe_&_Apocylcops_Panamensis_(2_sizes).html

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Yes, the wrasse picks at the rocks all day. I do have a sump , and have briefly read up on reproduction of pods. Do you believe the tank will not be able to sustain enough pods without me adding pods regularly, even with them both be eating frozen food?

I think you will be okay with your tank sustaining pods . It’s a 350 so it’s more than enough, but..... your wrasses could be a problem if you get an adult mandarin. They eat pods all day long and can eat thousands of pods each day. I think you will be okay though as long as you have a lot of pods. By a lot, I mean a crazy amount so it will sustain the mandarin and your wrasse.