Mandarins???

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I've just discovered my pod population is far larger than I thought... It's as though my tank is maggot infested... yet still I worry all the time about starving fish.
"Be sure your tanks got enough pods.
they're invisible but have enough or your fish will die"

It's daunting.

Salty-Noob said:
Haha point made. Eventually my goal is to get a mandarin but when the time is right
Click to expand...
 
Deltec
Liquid360 said:
I've just discovered my pod population is far larger than I thought... It's as though my tank is maggot infested... yet still I worry all the time about starving fish.
"Be sure your tanks got enough pods.
they're invisible but have enough or your fish will die"

It's daunting.
Click to expand...

I don't see that as a bad thing. You care for you inhabitants I think everyone here wants to see their tank thrive.
 
BRS
I inadvertently come upon the perfect way to check pod population. I was transferring my seahorses to a new tank. Their tank had been exclusively a pod farm. I stirred up the sand as best I could and then used a syphon vacuum into a bucket which I then poured through a gold basket coffee filter to transfer my pods to the new tank minus the sand. What I got was a coffee filter after coffee filter filled each with what looked hundreds and hundreds of maggots. At first i thought i had a massive parasite infestation. Till today I had zero idea just how many if any pods were in my tank. Nasty little things. Didn't know they got so large. Anyways point being that's the only way I've discovered that worked. Tried nighttime flashlight in red and UV and couldn't see jack.
 
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Deltec
Liquid360 said:
I inadvertently come upon the perfect way to check pod population. I was transferring my seahorses to a new tank. Their tank had been exclusively a pod farm. I stirred up the sand as best I could and then used a syphon vacuum into a bucket which I then poured through a gold basket coffee filter to transfer my pods to the new tank minus the sand. What I got was a coffee filter after coffee filter filled each with what looked hundreds and hundreds of maggots. At first i thought i had a massive parasite infestation. Till today I had zero idea just how many if any pods were in my tank. Nasty little things. Didn't know they got so large. Anyways point being that's the only way I've discovered that worked. Tried nighttime flashlight in red and UV and couldn't see jack.
Click to expand...

I stirred up my sand trying to get my damsels out. I was amazed at how many bristelworms were in the sand.
 
ReefBot Lab, Automated Water Tester
Liquid360 said:
Yeah I've watched a mandarin die of starvation while trying to be "trained". So sad. Despite fish being relatively inexpensive I try not to see them as disposable. If I'm told a fish requires an exotic wild caught algae found only in a certain isolated puddle in the jungles of Borneo I'll pass rather than think perhaps ill train him to eat burgers. 
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I would have not let him starve, that in my eyes is not right at all. Trust me on that. It was time consuming. I did use live pods if he wasn't eating, but training him to eat frozen or any other fish out there to eat frozen is basically the same concept. You try different foods for different fish don't you? So you have to basically find out what will work. You substitute algae sheets for tangs, etc. Nothing is really natural in a fish tank lol, but we all have our own opinions. I got lucky IMO. If he would have just stayed eating frozen I would have been happy as well. If he wouldn't have eaten then I would have either taken him back or gave him to someone that could keep him healthy and fat.
 
Deltec
Didn't mean to imply you were an aquatic psychopath. I just meant that training a fish to eat isn't a good choice for most. And nope I don't feed my fish/inverts/coral different things... pellets, brine shrimp, and pods is all... the occasional table shrimp for the nems. Like I said, in the ocean these fish are opportunistic feeders eating whatever the happen upon so in the home reef they are eating in exactly the same way as they would in an ocean they've never seen. Again I was speaking to the mandarin in general. As we know there are exceptions to most rules. Whatever aquatic atrocities you chose to commit in the comfort of your tank of horrors is totally your business

Ozzy said:
I would have not let him starve, that in my eyes is not right at all. Trust me on that. It was time consuming. I did use live pods if he wasn't eating, but training him to eat frozen or any other fish out there to eat frozen is basically the same concept. You try different foods for different fish don't you? So you have to basically find out what will work. You substitute algae sheets for tangs, etc. Nothing is really natural in a fish tank lol, but we all have our own opinions. I got lucky IMO. If he would have just stayed eating frozen I would have been happy as well. If he wouldn't have eaten then I would have either taken him back or gave him to someone that could keep him healthy and fat.
Click to expand...
 
Liquid360 said:
Didn't mean to imply you were an aquatic psychopath. I just meant that training a fish to eat isn't a good choice for most. And nope I don't feed my fish/inverts/coral different things... pellets, brine shrimp, and pods is all... the occasional table shrimp for the nems. Like I said, in the ocean these fish are opportunistic feeders eating whatever the happen upon so in the home reef they are eating in exactly the same way as they would in an ocean they've never seen. Again I was speaking to the mandarin in general. As we know there are exceptions to most rules. Whatever aquatic atrocities you chose to commit in the comfort of your tank of horrors is totally your business 
Click to expand...

Lol. No worries mate. Like I said I think that I just got lucky with the mandarin. I could have probably started with pellets and he would have ate them haha. But I would never let him or any other fish starve, that is just cruel. Trial and error basically, sometimes you get a fish that won't eat at all. So a lot of things in this hobby are pure luck IMO. But like I said my mandarin is fat an happy, along with all my other fish. So my accused "tank of horrors" is actually a "tank of happiness" or something in that manner. :P But getting back on subject....

If you really want a Mandarin go for it. Just make sure you have what it takes to keep it alive, let that be buying live pods to supply the tank or in my case by committing "aquatic atrocities" :P and training them on different foods, also having a larger refugium is always nice to get your pod population up. But good luck with whatever choice you make and if you do decide to try to "train" a mandarin, feel free to PM me and I can give you some info on how I went about doing it. But seriously, I got lucky. I know plenty of people that have tried and failed...so if you fail, don't get disgruntled and just buy live pods for
him or have a separate tank to just "breed pods" ;)
 
What's a refugium? Only been doing this for a couple of months so I want to know as much as possible
 
Orphek OR3 reef aquarium LED bar
My advice would be live within your means, someday you'll have a mandarin but maybe it would be best to wait. A 29g biocube isn't really an ideal size for a mandarin IMO....
 
Be aware that pods cost about $20 for a bottle that'll last less than a month with a single Mandarin.
Finding this out the hard way. If I didn't love mine so much I'd be rehoming him.
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
Oooooooh. Must take advantage of that. :) Thanks so much for the link!

I'm pretty sure my guy's eating the other food I put in (NLS Small Fish Pellets, Frozen Mysis Shrimp, etc,) but he's been so skittish lately it's been impossible to know for absolute certain....so I still buy him pods. Probably good for him to still have those anyway.
 
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