Your Pride and Joy

[Rip2131]

Mine for now is SHAG! My carpet nem...

That's huge! I remember going into my local LFS one day and one of these was eating their prize $350 fish. To this day I was so shocked it was eating it, I forgot what it was eating!

 

[afboundguy]

Awesome! We want to have a mandarin. What did you do to prepare your tank? Our LFS only suggested buying a bottle of tigger pods and letting them cultivate for a month or two. We did that and bought our mandarin 2 weeks ago and he she died in less than two weeks. Everything else is healthy and the water is fine so our best guess is she starved. We have a 95 gal tank with a 25 gal sump but no refugium. I’ve heard people say they cultivate the copepods in a refugium but also heard people say they will cultivate in the main tank. Others say in the main tank they will be eaten by fish and coral quicker than they can cultivate. Our worry is that the latter is true and we won’t be able to keep a thriving colony in the main tank enough to keep the mandarin fed. So I was wondering what you did and your thoughts.
Kirk

Kirk I wouldn't suggest trigger pods they seem to swim more put in the open. How old is your setup? If it's over a year old you should easily have a self sustaining pod population even without a fuge. You could always add one in the sump set up to help.

I only have about 28 gallons but I have been reefing for probably 20+ years at this point. I started a pod culture with this blend (https://www.agcorefishfood.com/stor..._Tisbe_&_Apocylcops_Panamensis_(2_sizes).html) a phyto culture and a white worm culture for months before I got a captive bred baby mandarin from a LFS who had her in stock for months (they were going through store move so I lucked out big time). I also dose the tank with baby brine shrimp 1-2 times a day using a spot feeder. I also put in two DIY pod hotels and a HOB fuge. I still have pods all over my glass and she's growing like a weed...

For the record I definitely don't recommend trying to house a mandarin in a small set up like mine. It's a crap ton of work but worth it for me and I'm willing to do the legwork!

Hope this helps!

 

[Paulie069]

Here’s my pride n joy

 

[Sharir]

WOW you have literally ALL my dream fish

Mind blown

 

[EvanDeVita]

Hard question: I have several amazing fish, but my favorite is the symbiotic relationship between anemone and clownfish! My RBTA and two Wyoming white clowns are my pride and joy