Copepods

[burringbar123]

Hi guys,

There is no doubt a logical answer to my question but i will ask anyway. Our tank is only very new, 5 months and as my eight year old daughter has an extreme desire for us to purchase some mandarin fish i understand before we purchase these we need a healthy population of copepods. After many hours of trying to spy these little suckers amongst our live rocks, i have only seen 1 or 2 moving about. Is there anything i can do to help the population of these little critters increase? any suggestions would be greatfully appreciated.

Thanks :bigsmile:

 

[Connie]

take a look at reefs2go.com...There are many sites that sell them, however it may be too warm to ship them.

 

[Loki]

Heck yes you can!! Get some pods and dump them in.

Make a few small piles of rock throughout your tank to give them a place for their population to explode. Then bam!

I did this am got my pods from JoeKnowsReefs (one of our sponsors) and they are perfect to do this with. if you get in touch with him just tell him what size tank you have and he'll recommend how many cultures you would need.

 

[Giancarlo]

If its to please your daughter get a pair of clowns, these fish are best kept in the ocean/left for really established tanks. Although someone created a really cool feeding pod thingy that I would search on this forum as I bet you will probably get one anyway. In the end I'd do much more research before you take the decision of an 8 year old...

 

[Loki]

Seed with pods. Wait a few Weeks seed with pods again. Repeat a few more times. And in a few months you will be good to go.

 

[Giancarlo]

yeah you may seed over and over again, but what if this guy has a 30 gallon tank, you actually believe he will be able to sustain the proper amounts of food for this fish? Come on man lets be realistic here, i know some people have had great success with this fish but its a 1 in 100 shot.

 

[Loki]

If it was his goal to succeed then I wouldn't bash what he wants. Yes if he has a 30 gallon tank he could put pods in.

He could get the thing to hand feed for all I know. I don't like to jump the gun and be negative towards someone that is seeking information. It's very possible to do IMO, but it will take lots of work to keep the pod population up.

Do I think it's a good idea to house one in a small tank without the intention of keeping up it's food supply and everything it needs? No.
Does that justify being negative? No.

 

[Giancarlo]

Look i am not trying to be negative about this, more realistic. Maybe we can both agree that more information is needed before anyone can give much advice really.

 

[NanoNathan]

yeah you may seed over and over again, but what if this guy has a 30 gallon tank, you actually believe he will be able to sustain the proper amounts of food for this fish? Come on man lets be realistic here, i know some people have had great success with this fish but its a 1 in 100 shot.

I have a fat healthy Mandarin in a 29g with 20 refuge. I dump in a bag of pods every two Weeks. I spend 25$ ish a month just to feed one fish. He is bigger then when I first got him 3.months ago. Its possible IMO if you keep feeding pods into your tank

Sent from my LG-LG855 using Tapatalk 2

 

[burringbar123]

thanks for the feed back, for reference my tank is 4ft x 2ft x 2ft.

 

[burringbar123]

hadnt finished lol..... thanks for the advise i am certainly open to all constructive critisism :smile:

 

[Loki]

Oh yeah you will be just fine with the 120g tank. Just make some piles of small rocks and drop in some pods. It is best to let them reproduce without anything that will eat them. What is your current fish list?

 

[burringbar123]

we are taking everything nice and steady, after 5 months we only have a pair of clowns and a 6 stripped wraisse which we are suspicious of stopping our population of pods growing as it constantly patrolling our live rock and every nook and cranny in our tank. All other research we have done has told us that the population will expand naturally which just doesnt seem to be happening.

 

[Cyber-Burn]

There was a great article in Coral here a while back talking about Mandarins, let me see if I can find the month. It was the November/December 2011 issue. It had some good information a bout supplemental feeding as well.

The only other word of caution i have would be to avoid other types of fish that also feed off of the pod population such as six line wrasse, filefish etc especially until the tank matures a bit more.

If you have a refugium in your sump adding pods to your refugium as well as some rubble areas in your tank will help boost the populations and give them a place to survive. Feeding a tiny bit extra before has also helped me boost populations.

I have seen a couple different takes on Mandarin feeders that would also be helpful after infusing the pod population a bit. I believe one is in PaulBs thread on here, and a google search may find the other.

 

[Loki]

A six line wrasse is a very good fish that will eat everything meaty....including pods. It may be why you don't see many. Do you have a fuge? You could build the pod population in there. Or if it is a decent size and you really want a mandarin. Maybe you could put the wrasse in the fuge while you build your pod population. Or just dump pods in more often and/or an extra culture each time to counter act what the six line eats.

 

[CJO]

You certainly have a large enough tank to support one or maybe even two mandarins. You just have to get the population going, which you will do by seeding the tank with copepod cultures. Make sure that you are buying Tisbe copepods for the seeding, rather than the Tigriopus. Although your fish will love the Tigriopus, and are great for a nice treat, they are mainly free-swimming (benthic initially and free-swimming as adults) and will get eaten too quickly to establish a permanent population.

CJ

 

[Cyber-Burn]

we are taking everything nice and steady, after 5 months we only have a pair of clowns and a 6 stripped wraisse which we are suspicious of stopping our population of pods growing as it constantly patrolling our live rock and every nook and cranny in our tank. All other research we have done has told us that the population will expand naturally which just doesnt seem to be happening.

Looks like we were posting at the same time. The six line will also feed off of pods in the tank, so that is probably the main reason why you haven't seen an increase in them. The best time to see them is at lights out with something like a red LED or a red lense over a flashlight. It disturbs things less and lets you get a good look at what is going on, at least that is when I get a good look at what is going on in my tank.

 

[BarbH]

Hello and welcome to r2r. As for your question of increasing your pod population for supporting a Mandarian yes it is possible. As mentioned having piles of rock rubble for the pods to repopulate in and a fuge with chaeto will help. The wrasse will definitly eat some of the pods, so it may take awhile to get your pod population up. Once you have your pod population established you may also from time to time need to or might want to add more in to make sure that your population is going strong. Another thing to keep in mind is any other fish that you plan on adding to your system and if they will compete with the mandarian for pods.

 

[ckozma]

I use the pods from JoeKnowsReefs.com also and love them. I seed pods for my mandarin every few months or as needed.

 

[wysiwyg]

go to reefs2go.com they always have a sale buy 1000pods get 1000pods free i stock pods almost monthly my fish love catching them and my longhorn cowfish avidly hunts for them in the liverock and in my crushed coral bed