Leakytree Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 For the last year I have been buying pods from Reef2go on a by monthly basis for my mandarin goby. He seems to be fat and healthy, but when I make the move to the new tank I was considering putting him in my QT to teach him to eat frozen mysis. Do you guys think this is a good idea or should I just continue to buy pods? The tank upgrade will go from 60g display to a 150g display so I there will be a much larger hunting area and more room for them to breed naturally. I also considered putting in a small area in the sump for pods, but I have never had much luck with that in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstarwiggle Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 No mandarin expert here, but I am having a little success feeding my mandarin goby live black worms. I have a 30 gallon cube. I bought him from Niko's Reef, where he was eating black worms, but when I took him home he was getting skinny fast and I noticed how much he was starving. Then, I just kept trying all the "train" techniques to feed the little fella. Then finally after reintroducing black worms again he finally started eating them again. I have seen him eat daily and I am still keeping my fingers crossed that he will continue to slurp them up. For a week there I was dumping every fish food you can throw at them. Then one day I dropped a block of frozen krill by accident and later in the evening he was full again(there is a noticable difference when their little tummys are full vs not.) Then I tried the black worms again and it just happened. One question to ask is how long will the upgrade take. One week or a period of 1 month or longer. You can drop a whole bunch of pods in the new tank and leave him in the old one, while pods populate in new tank. Meanwhile trying to teach him out of old tank? I was persist with providing food and if your patient enough hopefully it will pay off!! Whatever route you take, make sure you have a back up for feeding him asap. My back up was to give him back with my tale tucked because I knew what I was getting into, but it is paying off!! Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 Pods should grow in your sump. Any biofilm or micro algae should support pods. If your system is too clean for that, perhaps you should not have a mandarin. I have a mandarin in my 75G DT. He is a most curious fish that I have observed. I enjoy his pod hunting as he checks out all the nukes and crannies. Perhaps you should consider a couple of pod hotels? Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard L Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 I have a mandarin in 225 gallons and the natural pod population keeps way ahead of his consumption. So much so he is extremely fat. I would think that your 150 with plenty of live rock for the pods should be able to keep up with a single mandarin. If anything you may need to replenish your pods a couple times a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted February 26, 2014 Share Posted February 26, 2014 I've installed a small upow ATS in my sump just to boost the reproduction rate of the pods in my sump. I've got a 72g bow front and he seems to be happy. I also use pod condos, but with the ATS I'm not sure I need them anymore. The ATS was very simple and cheap to construct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 There was an article in Coral Magazine in Dec '11 (I think) that explains how to train a mandarin to eat. The cover image is of a mandarin which will make the issue easy to pick out. It isn't an easy process and I've purchased several mandarins that were eating frozen and go off frozen in a new environment. If you are willing to put in the commitment to teach the mandarin to perhaps eat frozen, go for it. If not, keep bombing the tank with pods. Also, Reefs2Go does not separate their fish systems from their invert systems. Therefore buying pods from them could infect your tank with a fish disease. Once I found this fact out, I stopped buying pods from Reef2Go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leakytree Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm leaning toward buying extra pods and trying to create a surplus in the tank. The "new" tank has been up for 2 months, but I'm in not hurry to move things over. I want to make sure everything is stable before I move my coral and remaining fish over. That being said it would be easy to buy some pods and let them stock the display for several months before he moves in. My last attempt at starting a pod culture ended poorly due to high flow in the sump. I think most of them got sucked into the display or churned into bits in the return pump. I have a small 30 gallon tank I can drill and attach as a lower flow fuge. This will also allow me grow pods and Macro for my tangs. Worst comes to worst if this fails I can always pull him out later and try to switch him to frozen. Not like they are the hard to catch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leakytree Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 Pods should grow in your sump. Any biofilm or micro algae should support pods. If your system is too clean for that, perhaps you should not have a mandarin. I have a mandarin in my 75G DT. He is a most curious fish that I have observed. I enjoy his pod hunting as he checks out all the nukes and crannies. Perhaps you should consider a couple of pod hotels? Patrick Do you have any suggestions for macro that would feed pods and my tangs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leakytree Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 There was an article in Coral Magazine in Dec '11 (I think) that explains how to train a mandarin to eat. The cover image is of a mandarin which will make the issue easy to pick out. It isn't an easy process and I've purchased several mandarins that were eating frozen and go off frozen in a new environment. If you are willing to put in the commitment to teach the mandarin to perhaps eat frozen, go for it. If not, keep bombing the tank with pods. Also, Reefs2Go does not separate their fish systems from their invert systems. Therefore buying pods from them could infect your tank with a fish disease. Once I found this fact out, I stopped buying pods from Reef2Go. I always wondered were they were housed. The bags are always filled with reeds and sticks, but they over fill the bags so I kept buying them. I bought some from a online vendor in here in Texas. It was the same price and free shipping!! However, when I looked in the bottle it was completely empty.... Just water. I got a 6x magnifier and still couldn't see anything. When I called the girl got very insulted and yelled at me. So I went back to reefs2go. Do you have another retailer you would suggest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 With respect to feeding tangs, both Ulva and Caulerpa Paspaloides would work. In the case of C. Paspalpoides, I grow it in my 135G display tank. For me it displays beautifully and the tangs graze continually on it. I have also used Ulva in display tanks in a different way. It grows attached to the return on HOB and flow nozzles and waves in the current for all to see. Everything eats Ulva, even people as it is the primary ingredient in Nori. Pods don't need much to grow except food. They eat almost anything, including dead fish. Primarily pods will eat bio films and micro algae. It is true that they will get sucked up by pumps, however, they are not helpless at living in high flow area. If you keep the predators away from them they will survive. A refugium is a refuge from predators. Come visit if you want to see what I said. Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstarwiggle Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Try algagen reefpods. Comes in a clear bottle. Somwtimes green. You can definitely see the tisbe copepods. another brand is called OceanPods.I have not tried those but I will on my next purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 When I clean my filter socks I turn them inside out and dump the contents into my refugium. I see a good amount of copepods and amphipods jumping off the sock into the refugium. Then I let the sock sit in a plastic container for another minute or so for the stubborn ones to jump off the sock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leakytree Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 With respect to feeding tangs, both Ulva and Caulerpa Paspaloides would work. In the case of C. Paspalpoides, I grow it in my 135G display tank. For me it displays beautifully and the tangs graze continually on it. I have also used Ulva in display tanks in a different way. It grows attached to the return on HOB and flow nozzles and waves in the current for all to see. Everything eats Ulva, even people as it is the primary ingredient in Nori. Pods don't need much to grow except food. They eat almost anything, including dead fish. Primarily pods will eat bio films and micro algae. It is true that they will get sucked up by pumps, however, they are not helpless at living in high flow area. If you keep the predators away from them they will survive. A refugium is a refuge from predators. Come visit if you want to see what I said. Patrick Thanks Patrick! I'm going to be our of town until next week, but I will pm you and setup a time we meet up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha D. Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 I've heard good things about Tiger Pods but I've never used them myself. Reef Cleaners sells a bag of pods for $12 and the shipping is much cheaper than R2G. Mr. Cobb also sells a bag of pods for $10 and there is no shipping. I think he comes to Austin once a week or twice a month. On the refugium macros, Chaetomorpha and Ulva are much cleaner than Caulerpa and there's next to no risk of going sexual. G. Hayi, Dragons Tongue and Dragons Breath are going to be your best reds. Red Lettuce is also good if you can get your hands on some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leakytree Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 Pods are on there way from reef cleaner! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mlaw Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 the big problem I have with Dragon's breath is that I can't seem to make it stay in one spot. I've glued it, I've tied it down with fishing line, I've put a rock on it. Nothing works. also the emerald crabs eat it all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstarwiggle Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nvrEnuf Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 I've had a madarin in my 46 BF for a little over 3 months now and he is growing. I run an algae scrubber; roughly 50 lbs of rock and a skimmer at 8 hrs a day. I do feed arctic pods at 1 tbsp/cube of PE mysis (3-4 days per mix); but the mandarin isn't showing response to "fedding time" currently. I hear they do show response to dead pods eventualy, I just haven't seen it as of yet. I guess my bottom line is that if up until this point your dragonete has not gone thin you might think about trimming down the pod supplimentation and watch to see if there is an effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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