As long as its eating brine shrimp and you can get it to him before the other fish eat it and enough times a day. Use enriched brine as there is little value in regular adult brine shrimp. Id look into adding pods every once in a while also. Arctipods is a good prepared food for fish like this if they will eat it.
Thank you so much for the info. I’ll be placing an order today. You all have been so great in helping educate me on this matter.
While this should be fine you need to make sure to feed multiple times per day. Mandarin have a fast digestive system. In ideal situations they feed on copepods non stop all day.
Do you by chance know the correct environment to grow copepods? I plan on getting some this weekend if not today for him and if I got a large quantity would they reproduce in my tank?
Mandarin can eat them by the 1000s every week. You can cultivate your own pods separately. I've had my Mandarin for 2 years now in a very well established system and I still add a jar of pods weekly. He occasionally nibbles frozen food and ova eggs but pods is the the primary food source. This is another animal that should only be added to established systems usually around one year at least.
Are you growing macro algae? A larger established tank can maintain the supply on its own. With a tank your size you just need some maturity and algae to eat.
Yeah, that's probably the case here, unfortunately.
Is your mandarin captive bred and eating mysis/brine shrimp? If so I would worry less about a heavy pod population. You can add phyto to keep pods around certain levels.
We are not growing macro algae as of yet but can get some this weekend if needed. My boyfriend was just looking and said he found a pod house? Where they can live and reproduce? I thought if we got something like that and dosed with the phyto we could get the pod colony started. Is there any worry with having an infestation of the pods? I know my Mandarin will eat them but would this also be a good food source for my clean up crew?
Pods are just beneficial all around for a tank. The more the better.
Perfect! Thank you so much for all your help
Their population self regulates based on tank conditions, food and predators. One month you see tons, next month none then they come back again. Its fine to seed the tank with a few jars to start. No pod hotel needed if you have good rock scape.
