mandarintopia?

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 3, 2015

hey hey, so main question is what would make a good mandarin dominant tank? looking to house two, and alot of lps and softies. how would you setup a 55g tank with a 30g sump. currently i have a fluval sea full spectrum 25k led and a 4' t5 2 bulb fixture. a skimmer and still collecting rock for the fuge.NEW QUESTION .fuge. fiji mud worth it? wanted fiji mud and mangroves... but cant find them anywhere, now im planning a bunch of small rock and cheato with a lamp working opposite as my main tank. cant buy pods out here either say there in the cheato and ill be getting some but want a good bag of em to start.... ill post pics of my setup in a min. tank is a year and a half old. had a crash and got rid of it all to start fresh. need more rock but im in no rush. thanks in advance

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 3, 2015

My space

maroun.c · Feb 4, 2015

2 would be barely visible in the tank as they disappear a lot looking for pods in the rockwork.
I'd make sure to seed the tank with pods and allow for breeding ground for them: Rock piles and Fuge.
Don't add many other fish that pick on pods so that you minimize food competition.

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 4, 2015

Cool. Yea I have a neon dotty back just want mushrooms and zoanthids. Acans. Having them just in there would be sweet cuz Yea they are bottom dwellers. Don't want many fish. What might you put in a 55? Possibly thinking an angel or copper band

Russellaqua · Feb 4, 2015

I agree with the above. The key will be providing lots of breeding ground for pods. Piles of porous rock should work well, and adding pods from time to time if there's any doubt about population. As arguably one of the most beautiful fish in the hobby it's a shame that they do disappear for periods of time while hunting. I would add some other non-competitive fish just for more action in the tank.

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 4, 2015

cool yeah I'm getting ready to buy a bunch of extra rock for my sump tank and cheato. What fish would you add to a 55? Tired of the usual clowns. the two mandarins I am preparing to purchase eat frozen food and pellets I've seen them numerous times eat food off the floor that aren't pods so I'm happy with that but I do want a very large pod population that's another reason why I want to go strictly Mandarin mainly due to the fact that there will be more food on the floor for them

TJ's Reef · Feb 4, 2015

A late WELCOME to R2R from another Seattle-ite sort of. There are several online sellers of Pods like Reefs2Go and LFS like Barrier Reef in Renton that normally carries pods. A few Fish I might suggest would be Cardinalfish like Banggai or ???, Kole or Tomini Tang even a Yellow or Purlpe if starting out with a small juvenile. Flasher or Fairy Wrasses (many to choose from) as long as the tank is well covered.

Are you a member of PSAS (Puget Sound Aquarium Society) or any of the local FB Groups ???

Cheers, Todd

MondoBongo · Feb 4, 2015

i wouldn't advocate two dragonets in a 55. that is not a good setup.

one in a 55 with a nice sized fuge can work, but to support a pair of them you should realistically be looking at upwards of 125 gallons.

also a 55 is not an approrptiate sized tank for a tang. any tang.

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 4, 2015

No tangs for me. See its all about pod control so that's why I'm asking about setups for pod breeding. And realisticly... You sound like a rude reef elitist. I clearly stated mine eat frozen food and don't need pods but want a good pod population anyway. Thank you for your opinion though. Yes I'm in Seattle and no groups for me. Just starting to reach out online. I'll look them up though. Also if there's nothing else in my tank fish wise would eating even be a problem. Leftovers would fall to the floor. I've seen these eat pellets. But I think I got the info needed thanks for the tips guys.

pinky · Feb 5, 2015

There's a million different opinions for these guys. I am so not an expert I just only got my first mandarin last month but i did 3 years of research she is in a 29gallon.... That to some is wrong, but to me each fish is different. The old school thinking is large tank lots of pods. But there is a whole bunch of people keeping them in nanos. It just means more work and more food options. Prawn roe seems to be the best for them, but its like impossible to find. I supplement with newly hatches baby brine shrimp, mullet roe I got in Florida off a fishing boat, white worms, cyclopseez , and I'm hunting a pellet she will eat. I use Paul Bs feeder design it's amazing.

I think your doing the right thing designing your whole system for them and I feel you should be good, just keep an open mind this is a touchy subject to some but every fish is different so there really isn't any ture "always" or" every" statements. I'll be following along keep us updated.

I'm also looking into a good open swimming non pod eating fish to house with my female mandarin, but I have just started the search for this info you should have plenty of options with such a large tank!!

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 5, 2015

Thanks pinky. I'll keep posting pics. Getting my sump rock and cheato this Saturday. Getting some pods too. Will let my tank sit another month before getting the fish. My LFS has him saved for me. He's a fat little guy eats anything on the floor.

pinky · Feb 5, 2015

I should say I didn't mean the old school way as a bad thing... That is the only way that I know of to keep a mandarin happy and healthy without any humane intervention... That's not a bad way to keep them but I just meant that now we know more about them and are learning other ways to keep them happy and healthy. So that was not meant to be disrespectful to anyone

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 5, 2015

No disrespect. Your points are valid and are true. I've heard people say LEDs won't grow coral and MHs are best. like you stated before there is no every way or single way to do things

pinky · Feb 5, 2015

That's awesome make sure you get the pellets he's eating, and feed him in the bag before you let him go in the tank. I was warned that some get all pod crazy when moved and may not be too keen on eating the pellets. The only thing I know for sure about these guys is each one seems to be different so it will be interesting to see what happens!

Reefersutherland_ · Feb 6, 2015

I thought that mandarins don't work good together. At least the males do t I think. Careful when putting them together

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 6, 2015

Yea. Going to start with just one.picked up some more rock today but definitely need more got cheato too

Sonam · Feb 7, 2015

For what it's worth we have a copepod cultivation tank that was pretty easy to set up and so far has been very productive. We are novices, so this is a case of "if we can do it anyone can".

We started with a 5 gallon tank (I've read people also use buckets for this - it's ugly no matter what you use)), a heater and a small pump for air (very slow bubbles). We filled the tank about 1/3 full of fresh saltwater, added some live phytoplankton (enough to turn the water green) and added a bottle of tigger pods. For maintenance we top off evaporation with fresh water (all water is Rodi) and when the water begins to smell bad we dilute it with fresh saltwater. When the tank fills up we do a water change using sieves to capture pods from the discharged water. This only happens about once a month. We feed the set up with live phytoplankton- keeping the water tinged green. After a few weeks the pod population "exploded" and we began harvesting them. We harvest every other day or so for our display tank. Our mandarin is plump and happy and the process doesn't take much time or effort. The whole set up took maybe 20 minutes once the saltwater was mixed. It requires less than 5 minutes most days to maintain and we never have to worry about our mandarin not getting a good diet.

Hope this is helpful.

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 7, 2015

Best po see tbyet dude. Great advice

PatrioticAquaholic · Feb 8, 2015

Lol. Best post yet.... Don't know what happened there. But here's an update. Got 15lbs of dry rock and 2 cups of cheato. Probably going to grab more cheato.