How long until i can get a dragonet?

[ILikeFish!]

I have a 55 gallon with 30 pounds of ocean live rock and 20 pounds of dry rock, i also have a 30 gallon sump with a around 10 gallon refugium that i just seeded with a algae barn refugium kit. how long will it take for there to be enough pods for a dragonet?

 

[Dave1993]

unless you have a refugium never unless you want to add 100 bags of pods a month

 

[homer1475]

Are you feeding the pods? Does the algae barn fuge kit come with some phytoplankton too?

You need to feed the pods for them to reproduce.

 

[homer1475]

unless you have a refugium never unless you want to add 100 bags of pods a month

No fuge here and I keep a breeding pair in my 80G cube with several wrasses. No issues with pods. I have so many they crawl the glass at night even with all my wrasses and 2 dedicated pod eaters.

Refugium is not a necessity to keeping mandarins. Feeding the pods so they keep reproducing is a requirement.

 

[ILikeFish!]

unless you have a refugium never unless you want to add 100 bags of pods a month

I said i have a refugium

 

[ILikeFish!]

Are you feeding the pods? Does the algae barn fuge kit come with some phytoplankton too?

You need to feed the pods for them to reproduce.

Well i have fish in the tank and I thought they just feed on any detritus so no I didn’t feed them anything, and yes it comes with plankton.

 

[homer1475]

The phyto they send with that kit, is to feed the pods. Use it, and keep using it. Keep feeding those pods, and in a couple months when they have a good breeding population, get a mandarin.

I would suggest looking into buying a captive bred mandy as they are already used to eating prepared foods. Nothing is saying they won't revert back to pods only in a well stocked tank, but it gives them a better chance of survival if they are already eating prepared foods.