How to prep for a Mandarin?

[najer]

I seeded mine right after the cycle and fed/feed phytoplankton regularly. I’ve noticed lately more and more of them are congregating on the glass eating algae. Never too early to start seeding from the ground up

Exactly, my little girl hunts all day but also takes pellet and frozen.
I have a large fuge and a display fuge, she spends most of her time in there, as you would!
Oh and my lfs never release their mandarines until they are taking frozen.

 

[KMench]

@PhilT Mine was probably about 3/4” long when I got him. I ordered my biota from liveaquaria. Here’s their website size listed below

 

[JasPR]

unless you spot feed the mandarin it will starve to death slowing with the fish you already have. Mandarins need to live with other slow feeders-- pipefish, jawfish ( not slow but stationary) gobies, shrimp, etc. IF you make a reef wall and seed the tank ( again don't know you would do that with things like flame angels who will pick and gobble us anything that moves) your mandarin can live amongst the reef rocks and forage. In the end, we just can't mix species of every type in one glass box and expect all to flourish. A environment for like creatures is always the better way to go

 

[najer]

unless you spot feed the mandarin it will starve to death slowing with the fish you already have. Mandarins need to live with other slow feeders-- pipefish, jawfish ( not slow but stationary) gobies, shrimp, etc. IF you make a reef wall and seed the tank ( again don't know you would do that with things like flame angels who will pick and gobble us anything that moves) your mandarin can live amongst the reef rocks and forage. In the end, we just can't mix species of every type in one glass box and expect all to flourish. A environment for like creatures is always the better way to go

I guess it depends on the fish and how chilled a tank is, sorry to disagree, 2 tangs and a flame angel, baby leopard puffer, small dwarf fuzzy lion, medium algae blenny, Hectors goby, 3 clowns, paddelfin goby, 2 circus gobies, flame hawk, small red other hawk, female mandarin, male black and white scooter blenny (I know I snuck the Mandarin in there), I think that is it, just saying!

 

[ReefAddiction34]

Its hard to “prepare” for a mandarin. It seems you either have a large tank with a lot of live rock and huge pod population, or your mandarin eats frozen and or pellets on a regular basis. I’ve had my mandarin in a 14g biocube for 1.5 years now and he eats hikari mysis and hikari cyclopods as wel as reef frenzy pellets. It took awhile to train him as he was wild caught. But that dude sucks down pellets and slurps up whole mysis shrimp like it’s nothing! I worked with him daily for about a month and had to supplement pods in the interim but it was worth it.
I think the best thing to do if your gonna try to train it, is to offer it a wide variety of foods. I would do small amounts of mysis, cyclopods, pellets, and capellin roe and let that all soak/defrost in selcon and garlic guard (you only need a small amount of this stuff) then turkey baste all that goodness over the rocks. The key is that you have to turn off all flow and give it time. Eventually it will take in some of these foods and then it’s easy street from there. It helps if your other inhabitants are not aggressive. I have a starry night blenny, green clown goby, and a flaming prawn goby so the environment is pretty relaxed for the mandarin.
I still supplement pods occasionally, have a small refugium in my second chamber, and keep a small tuft of chaeto in the display section of the tank behind my rocks in the back. But even just feeding once a day, he is fat and happy.
People say you shouldn’t keep them in smaller tanks but I disagree. Small tanks make it easier to target feed and to observe your mandarin. This allows you to see if it is actually eating and if it’s losing too much weight indicating you need to take it back to lfs immediately because it likely isn’t eating prepared foods.
They really are incredible little fish, but please do your homework before buying them and be prepared to put in time and effort to train them to take prepared foods.
Hope this helps!

 

[cracker]

So what are pods in the refugium with some type of macro actually eating? Do they eat the macro it'self or the stuff that grows on the algae? Also what's people's opinion on bare bottoms & pods ?
Thanks

 

[FragileReefer]

What type of pods will thrive in a reef tank. I read somewhere that Tigger pods is a cold water species and doesn't reproduce in reef tanks. And I see multiple different pods sold. What is the best species to seed a tank or is the shotgun approach best?

 

[ReefAddiction34]

What type of pods will thrive in a reef tank. I read somewhere that Tigger pods is a cold water species and doesn't reproduce in reef tanks. And I see multiple different pods sold. What is the best species to seed a tank or is the shotgun approach best?

I’m not sure one pod species is better than another. From what I have read, it’s usually between tigger pods and Tisbe pods. Tigger pods are larger. Wouldn’t hurt to try both and create some pod diversity in your tank. If you have fish they won’t go to waste.

 

[Razz]

I'm not sure what the best species is, but I've had good luck with Tisbe pods from Algae Barn

 

[Steve1500]

What tangs do you have? IME experience you will not be able to target feed a mandarin with these in the tank. I was successfully target feeding my mandarin in my 90g for 18months until i added a tang, now my kole bulldozes its way in and eats any food I target at the mandarin so don't count on this working.

I'm pretty sure the kole has also had a noticeable impact on my pod population, particularly those on the glass due to its constant grazing on film algae. just something else to consider in a small tank (mandarin-wise) with 1 or more tangs.

Honestly IMO your tank may be a little 'busy' with multiple tangs and a flame in a 75g to keep a stress free mandarin. If you are set on keeping one be prepared to add pods at regular intervals AND set up an @PaulB feeder, which requires hatching of baby brine every day, if you aren't willing to do these things then honestly i would pass on a mandarin if i were you as your chances of keeping it alive will be slim.

I should point out that the above points still hold true for captive bred mandarins also, mine is ftom biota. They still need access to 100's/1000's of pods per day. I add pods occasionally in my 90 and also use the baby brine feeder as mentioned above daily.

Good points that I would not have figured out until it was too late....especially with the tangs and flame. Not sure I have the time to do all the tasks you mentioned so seriously rethinking the idea.

 

[40B Knasty]

Hope this helps. Best thing to do is seed your tank with some Tisbe Pods from Algagen. Shut off your pumps. Take a PVC pipe and dump the bottle down the pipe so the Tisbe pods get to the sand bed. This size pod you know the other fish are not going to eat and they do thrive in a home aquarium. Tigger pods I highly recommend from Reef Nutrition. Tigger pods are collected in different areas. The best ones are theirs because they can handle California tide pools where the water temps rise up to 90F easy in the California Sun and they can handle salinity swings up to 1.033ppm. I know from experience cultivating them. The baby brine shrimp is okay to start with, but not a solution to keeping them.

 

[Captain Quint]

I have a fuge but how long will 5K pods last (let's say the mandarin was the only fish in the tank and that is all you fed him)? 5K is crazy hungry! I will start seeding pods in my fuge/tank about 2-3 months before I buy the fish...sound right?

Sounds good and glad to see the patience you have. Good mature tank with established pod population will make or break. It also good to add plenty of pods such as Tisbee Pods and Algae Barn sells great batches. Amphipods and Copepods are good to seed the tank with as well as a fuge. Just power down your system for ~an hour to let them settle into the LR without getting blown all over and down the pipe. The two to three months you wrote of will allow a great population surge, but the longer you let the system mature pod wise, the better. I usually wait about a year to intro a dragonet if starting a new system.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

What type of pods will thrive in a reef tank. I read somewhere that Tigger pods is a cold water species and doesn't reproduce in reef tanks. And I see multiple different pods sold. What is the best species to seed a tank or is the shotgun approach best?

Tigger-Pods are eurythermic, tolerating low temperatures and high temperatures. It is a myth that they are a cold water species. Here is an article I wrote about this very subject: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...rnicus-addressing-the-cold-water-myth.297607/

I hope this is helpful. I'm all about education in this industry.

Best,
Chad

 

[DancingShark]

This is what I pull a week from my culture. I leave about 2/3 of the water in the tank just to give you a ideas of how much or how fast the reproduce.
I followed @40B Knasty videos by the way. I use a coffe filter it pull these guys out.

 

[chris85]

So what are pods in the refugium with some type of macro actually eating? Do they eat the macro it'self or the stuff that grows on the algae? Also what's people's opinion on bare bottoms & pods ?
Thanks

It depends on the species... they eat anything from detritus to phyto.

Mandarin feed on alot more than just pods!! They even have a second set of jaws for crushing. What kind of snails do you have? I would suggest getting something that will reproduce in the system, such as cerith, limpets, nassarius, or maybe dibs turbos. Also look into an algae scrubber it will produce alot of different species of copepods, amphipods, various worms with little effort on your part. I have even seen them pick the eggs off of ghost and cleaner shrimp when they get a chance. You could look into skeleton shrimp as another food source to put in your fuge. Hope this helps and gives you something to think about.

 

[RyonFly]

They usually come in at 1/4”

I'll second this, I was at work when my algaebarn mandarin came in, my wife acclimated and added, she told me it was tiny. I tried find it when I got home and couldn't, she had too point it out, kept passing over it think it was a dwarf cerith snail. No joke, was so worried about losing it.

 

[RyonFly]

I'll second this, I was at work when my algaebarn mandarin came in, my wife acclimated and added, she told me it was tiny. I tried find it when I got home and couldn't, she had too point it out, kept passing over it think it was a dwarf cerith snail. No joke, was so worried about losing it.

Also want to 2nd the white worms. Buy a culture on eBay for 10 bucks. They multiply fast with just dirt and bread. Want to see a crazy feeding response from a mandarin? That's the ticket.