Copepods Help

[bgilson]

I have a Mandarin Goby and bought him some copepods today. It was a 6oz bottle. Says it should be given once a week. This 6oz bottle is $20 and 40 min drive. I also have a hoeven
/pinstripe wrasse that eat them.

So question is how many is usually in a 6oz bottle? Where can I get enough that they will reproduce? How many do I need for that to happen?

 

[Jekyl]

I have a Mandarin Goby and bought him some copepods today. It was a 6oz bottle. Says it should be given once a week. This 6oz bottle is $20 and 40 min drive. I also have a hoeven
/pinstripe wrasse that eat them.

So question is how many is usually in a 6oz bottle? Where can I get enough that they will reproduce? How many do I need for that to happen?

What size tank?

 

[Garf]

I have a Mandarin Goby and bought him some copepods today. It was a 6oz bottle. Says it should be given once a week. This 6oz bottle is $20 and 40 min drive. I also have a hoeven
/pinstripe wrasse that eat them.

So question is how many is usually in a 6oz bottle? Where can I get enough that they will reproduce? How many do I need for that to happen?

I’ve got a target mandarin that eats frozen, which surprised me.

 

[Andresnyc93]

Get yourself some @AlgaeBarn , I have a subscription for 4 jars monthly and my mandarin is nice a fat always nipping since tank is gushing with pods.
It also helps if you have a safe reproduction place for pods (refugium or some sort of “pod hotel”

 

[swallace]

I have a Mandarin Goby and bought him some copepods today. It was a 6oz bottle. Says it should be given once a week. This 6oz bottle is $20 and 40 min drive. I also have a hoeven
/pinstripe wrasse that eat them.

So question is how many is usually in a 6oz bottle? Where can I get enough that they will reproduce? How many do I need for that to happen?

It’s my understanding that it takes quite a few months to have a population large enough to support a mandarin.

as others have mentioned you need to provide them a safe place to reproduce, and on top of that the copepods themselves require food to take full advantage and maximize reproduction chances.

i would suggest that you look at a subscription for pods and food.

Another alternative is to do what I and many others doing, breed your own pods and phyto. It’s pretty easy to get started.
Good luck! I look forward to having a mandarin one day.

 

[bgilson]

What size tank?

40 breeder

 

[James5214]

There is a guy on here that harvest his own copepods and sells for a very reasonable price and has thousands of pods of the Tigger genius in one bottle. He's been harvesting this same genius since 2003 I can give you his name and you can PM him if you like

 

[topjimmy]

I have a Mandarin Goby and bought him some copepods today. It was a 6oz bottle. Says it should be given once a week. This 6oz bottle is $20 and 40 min drive. I also have a hoeven
/pinstripe wrasse that eat them.

So question is how many is usually in a 6oz bottle? Where can I get enough that they will reproduce? How many do I need for that to happen?

I've grown them in a 5 gal bucket with a couple of inches of water in it. They don't need heat, light other than ambient. I have a tub of them outside on my porch that I feed phyto but that's not completely necessary. Feed them some flake food, or even dried algae.

 

[Jekyl]

40 breeder

A tank that size with 2 fish consuming pods will require regular pods as you've suspected. I have a mandarin in my 90 and she eats hundreds of pods a day on her own. Do you have a refugium with chaeto?

 

[G Santana]

I bought a ball of chaeto loaded with pods, dropped it in my sump, after a couple of weeks my tank glass was covered in them.
I added a mandarin and have never added pods after that.
Almost two years later my mandarin is fat and happy.
If you see them on your glass you have enough to support a mandarin.

 

[Jay'sReefBugs]

You might want to get into a local fish group and see if someone can take that mandrine off your hands . If you don't already have a established copepod population it's pretty much going to suffer a slow death . Most LFS mandarins are wild caught

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

you can culture them yourself if you want, its very easy, kind of fun if your into experimenting, and all you need is a small tupperware and an airpump, so its very inexpensive. There are thousands of videos on youtube showing different set-ups, you can easily find one that suits you. They reproduce fast enough that they can be harvested every few weeks, so its a much better alternative than paying $20 every time

 

[bgilson]

You might want to get into a local fish group and see if someone can take that mandrine off your hands . If you don't already have a established copepod population it's pretty much going to suffer a slow death . Most LFS mandarins are wild caught

He eats frozen when I got him.