Will I be able to keep a mandarin dragonet under these conditions?

[noxel56]

Hello, I am 14 and setting up my first reef tank. I am also new to this forum so please excuse any mistakes I might make. As any newbie does, I have fallen in love with the green mandarin dragonet. The tank is exactly 37.4 gallons and is going to be a soft/lps mixed reef. It will be running with a hob filter and 2 jabeo wavemakers. Unfortunately I cannot set up a sump, which means no refugium. I don’t know if it would be worth it to set up a pod breeding tank or just keep buying bottles of pods. I could also try to find one that is eating prepared food. Let me know your thoughts on the matter and what I should do to keep the pods.
This is my stock list as of the time being.

Fish:

• Ocellaris Clownfish (2x)
• McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse
• Green Mandarin Dragonet
• Firefish (2x)
• Molly Miller Blenny
• Yellow Watchman Goby

Inverts:

• Tiger Pistol Shrimp
• Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• Rock Flower Anemone (?x)
• Banded Trochus Snail (?x)
• Blue Legged Hermitcrab (?x)
• Nassarius Snail (?x)
• Sand Sifting Starfish
• Tuxedo Urchin

 

[Dj City]

Welcome to R2R.
We are happy to have you here and will be happy to help in any way we can...

 

[noxel56]

Welcome to R2R.
We are happy to have you here and will be happy to help in any way we can...

Thank you! Hopefully I can learn a lot to make this hobby a whole lot easier.

 

[Dj City]

As for your question on the mandarin...

You will want to buy LOTS of pods for the time being. The mandarin will eat the population as you add them making reproduction harder and longer to establish.
It will take a while to build a stable pod community.
If you have a place in your tank that you could set up some small rubble rock for a pod home, that would help.

 

[CuzzA]

Hello, I am 14 and setting up my first reef tank. I am also new to this forum so please excuse any mistakes I might make. As any newbie does, I have fallen in love with the green mandarin dragonet. The tank is exactly 37.4 gallons and is going to be a soft/lps mixed reef. It will be running with a hob filter and 2 jabeo wavemakers. Unfortunately I cannot set up a sump, which means no refugium. I don’t know if it would be worth it to set up a pod breeding tank or just keep buying bottles of pods. I could also try to find one that is eating prepared food. Let me know your thoughts on the matter and what I should do to keep the pods.
This is my stock list as of the time being.

Fish:

• Ocellaris Clownfish (2x)
• McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse
• Green Mandarin Dragonet
• Firefish (2x)
• Molly Miller Blenny
• Yellow Watchman Goby

Inverts:

• Tiger Pistol Shrimp
• Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• Rock Flower Anemone (?x)
• Banded Trochus Snail (?x)
• Blue Legged Hermitcrab (?x)
• Nassarius Snail (?x)
• Sand Sifting Starfish
• Tuxedo Urchin

Welcome. Two firefish probably won't work unless they're mated. A sand sifting star will starve in that size tank. For nassarius snails just add a couple. Too many and they'll starve.

As for your Mandarin question, you'll need to supplement the tank with pods. You can buy or breed them. Or you could setup a brine shrimp hatchery. The dish style works excellent. Then you'll want to make one of Paul B's brine shrimp feeders. Doing one or more of those three should sustain the Mandarin indefinitely. Good luck and do yourself a favor and quarantine all of your fish.

 

[a4edwin]

You can go with a hob refugium. I have a small aquafuge 2 growing cheato and a eshopps hob protein skimmer on my 36g bowfront. You can throw some live rock in it for your pod population to grow in

 

[Dj City]

You CAN set up a fuge. You can get an aquaclear hob and a grow light.

I did this on my frag tank. Really easy to do and very effective. Great for pods too!
I used an Aqua clear 110 on a 20 gallon frag tank.

Just look up aqua clear fuge mod and a bunch of hits will pop up.


This youtube example has way more going on than you need but it gives you ideas on what you could do.

 

[noxel56]

Welcome. Two firefish probably won't work unless they're mated. A sand sifting star will starve in that size tank. For nassarius snails just add a couple. Too many and they'll starve.

As for your Mandarin question, you'll need to supplement the tank with pods. You can buy or breed them. Or you could setup a brine shrimp hatchery. The dish style works excellent. Then you'll want to make one of Paul B's brine shrimp feeders. Doing one or more of those three should sustain the Mandarin indefinitely. Good luck and do yourself a favor and quarantine all of your fish.

Yeah I heard about Paul B’s method. As for the brine shrimp is there any specific websites or videos you would recommend?

About the other stuff you mentioned, if I can seem to find a male and a female firefish I will just stick with one. The sand sifting star I was planning on adding it later down the road but it’s fine if I can’t end up adding it. Thanks for all the help!

 

[Dj City]

Another example

 

[noxel56]

You can go with a hob refugium. I have a small aquafuge 2 growing cheato and a eshopps hob protein skimmer on my 36g bowfront. You can throw some live rock in it for your pod population to grow in

My dad had my tank custom made for a Christmas gift so idk if a hob fuge would work. Would I have to get a separate item or could I set up a hob fuge in the filter?

 

[noxel56]

You CAN set up a fuge. You can get an aquaclear hob and a grow light.

I did this on my frag tank. Really easy to do and very effective. Great for pods too!
I used an Aqua clear 110 on a 20 gallon frag tank.

Just look up aqua clear fuge mod and a bunch of hits will pop up.


This youtube example has way more going on than you need but it gives you ideas on what you could do.

This is the filter I currently have. I can purchase another one but would I also need a filter and a hob fuge or would the fuge be inside the main filter?

 

[Dj City]

This is the filter I currently have. I can purchase another one but would I also need a filter and a hob fuge or would the fuge be inside the main filter?

Keep that filter.
Add the aqua clear to your tank along with your current filter.

You will also benefit from the extra water volume, extra flow and extra filtering.

 

[a4edwin]

If you run a hob filter you should be able to run hob fuge

 

[CuzzA]

Yeah I heard about Paul B’s method. As for the brine shrimp is there any specific websites or videos you would recommend?

About the other stuff you mentioned, if I can seem to find a male and a female firefish I will just stick with one. The sand sifting star I was planning on adding it later down the road but it’s fine if I can’t end up adding it. Thanks for all the help!

Hatching Artemia is super easy. This is the best one I've used so far.

Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish.
I can't speak to a small hang on fuge sustaining an adult mandarin. I have never tried that technique as I've always had a sump. They get pretty big and fat for a small fish.

 

[Terry Mattson]

For the fire fish, look at getting a purple fire fish. Also research tank bred and raised mandarin. They are trained to eat some forms of frozen food.

I have a mandarin in a 93 gallon system. 73 gallon desplay. Refugium. And that fish decimated a tank full of pods. Got tired of buying pods so I use the Poseidon reef system for pods.

Another item to look at is a ro/di system to purify your water. Welcome to R2R.

 

[CuzzA]

For the fire fish, look at getting a purple fire fish. Also research tank bred and raised mandarin. They are trained to eat some forms of frozen food.

I have a mandarin in a 93 gallon system. 73 gallon desplay. Refugium. And that fish decimated a tank full of pods. Got tired of buying pods so I use the Poseidon reef system for pods.

Another item to look at is a ro/di system to purify your water. Welcome to R2R.

Yeah, I can't imagine a HOB fuge would sustain one long term. They are pod eating machines. IIRC, on average they eat a pod every six seconds the light are on. That's a lot of pods.

 

[Terry Mattson]

Here is the Poseidon reef system I purchased. And pictures of my ro/di system. Your can be much smaller.

 

[noxel56]

Keep that filter.
Add the aqua clear to your tank along with your current filter.

You will also benefit from the extra water volume, extra flow and extra filtering.

I’ll have to see if I can do that. My dad custom made my tank for me so idk if there are 2 openings for 2 different filters.

 

[noxel56]

For the fire fish, look at getting a purple fire fish. Also research tank bred and raised mandarin. They are trained to eat some forms of frozen food.

I have a mandarin in a 93 gallon system. 73 gallon desplay. Refugium. And that fish decimated a tank full of pods. Got tired of buying pods so I use the Poseidon reef system for pods.

Another item to look at is a ro/di system to purify your water. Welcome to R2R.

I have access to all the RO/DI water I need. Have a system in my garage.

 

[Terry Mattson]

I have access to all the RO/DI water I need. Have a system in my garage.

Perfect.