Biocube 29 gallon refugium

[MuchoMuffin]

I have had my 29 gallon Biocube for about 4 months and decided to turn the middle chamber (in the back) into a refugium. I added two rocks and chaeto algea with a submersible LED strip. I had pods growing in my tank already but I wanted to give them a boost and added a bottle of pods in the tank and the refugium. I know that Mandarin Dragonets need 75gal tank and will do well in a established tank. I also did research and found out they can be kept in smaller tanks but need a refugium. My goal is to have a well establish pod refugium and train Mandarin Dragonet to eat pellets.

Questions I'm asking are: How long should I wait to introduce a Mandarin into my tank, without worrying about the pod supply.
Health condition of Mandarin Dragonets with pellets?

Also I know the Biocube lights are not very good and planning yo upgrade the lights.
Any suggestions?

 

[mallorieGgator]

Mandarins can be kept in a smaller tank but a really good idea would be to set up a copepod culture that's in another small tank (like a 5 gallon or less) and culture them so you can feed the mandarin while you're attempting to train it to eat pellets. Training them to eat pellets can be done and I don't know much about it other than it is difficult and many mandarins just do better on copepods.