Baby Mandarin has ammonia burn!!!! PLEASE HELP!!

[Anak’s Reef]

How many pods do you dose per day for the fish

I don’t add copepods daily. I look at it based on if there are tons of copepods or not. If I don’t see a ton of pods and my mandarin isn’t pecking as much, I’ll buy more. But I haven’t added copepods in 2 1/2 weeks. Because my pod population has filled the entire back glass I can see all of them move around as the light pipes down they are more active at night.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Mandarins will eat pods all day.you need a lot! It’s not about adding pods daily it’s about having a population that can keep up with the fishes appetite.

I agree. That’s what I do. I add them when I don’t see my mandarin pecking too much and that the pod population has. Decreased.

 

[Alaeriel]

If you add a refugium, it has two highly beneficial outcomes:
1) increased water volume. This is helpful for many obvious reasons, it gives more stability for parameters and more room to put things like macroalgae and cured rocks. These, in turn, bring us to the second outcome. 2) A space for your copepod population to stabilize. Dosing pods is helpful in the short term, but allowing a population to thrive in your refugium that your mandarin can't wipe out will make sure she never runs out of food. Hope that makes sense! Do lots of research and learn from other's mistakes. Hopefully she gets better and is with you for many years.

 

[wonroc]

I think that google has about eighty thousand false ammonia read threads and thats only on the first few pages of the return...its a massive hobby-wide problem.

Word

 

[Anak’s Reef]

If you add a refugium, it has two highly beneficial outcomes:
1) increased water volume. This is helpful for many obvious reasons, it gives more stability for parameters and more room to put things like macroalgae and cured rocks. These, in turn, bring us to the second outcome. 2) A space for your copepod population to stabilize. Dosing pods is helpful in the short term, but allowing a population to thrive in your refugium that your mandarin can't wipe out will make sure she never runs out of food. Hope that makes sense! Do lots of research and learn from other's mistakes. Hopefully she gets better and is with you for many years.

Definitely! Thank you so much! I’m hoping to get a fuge soon, but since I have to ask, i can get approval yet. They still think that my mandarin is doing well with this much copepods. I’ll definitely get a refugium as soon as I can, I was thinking from the start. It would be much better having a fuge rather than adding copepods all the time. Thanks so much!

 

[PicassoClown04]

Here’s a nice hang on the back fuge. Rated up to 40 gallons and way less work than a traditional tiny tank fuge. I’m gonna pull the trigger on this tomorrow in prep for a mandarin/ruby red next year Link to Fuge

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Quick update. My mandarin pulled through, she’s doing completely fine now, and yes, I do think it isn’t ammonia burn and to those who said that thank you and i acknowledge your help. I’m sorry I didn’t know and posted wrong, she’s healing well, find are closing back together, the white spot is fading. Not fully healed, but it’s fading really well.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Here’s a nice hang on the back fuge. Rated up to 40 gallons and way less work than a traditional tiny tank fuge. I’m gonna pull the trigger on this tomorrow in prep for a mandarin/ruby red next year Link to Fuge

Pretty nice. Maybe I’ll pick up this one soon. Definitely a good idea to start a fuge before you get a mandarin or any dragonet. Thanks!