Help I bought a Mandarin without doing my homework

[Wildcat4Life]

I have a 55 gal. reef tank with ~65-75 lbs. of live rock. It's only been established for about 2 months. I bought a mandarin without researching it's care first. The lady at the lfs said it will eat just about anything. I have since learned that that was a load of crap. I do not have a refugium, but I have saw the moltings of what I think are large pods, possibly amniopods. I've tried a lot of different feeding strategies with minimal success. I tried frozen mysis shrimp, and brine shrimp. I tried the technique used in the mandarin diner video with the mysis shrimp. I have been adding newly hatched live brine shrimp every other day. I have also order a bottle of pods. Will adding these pods help to feed my Mandarin. If so how much should I add and how often should I add them. I am also going to try formula one pellets. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. My Mandarin is looking skinny.

[Poisson Voyageur]

My 2 cents advise would be to bring it back to your LFS with a copy of the information you found on the internet to make your point that she gave the wrong info and should not do that again. If people keep buying them, they'll keep ordering more and more will die.
I know it is so tempting to "give it a chance" in your tank rather than returning it but I'm almost 100% positive it will die.
I was in the exact same position 7 years ago, I had bought one on impulse, I was a beginner, learned it the hard way, it got skinnier and skinnier and quickly sadly died.
It looks like you have tried a lot of feeding methods already...running out of options unless you keep buying a lot but a lot of expensive pods on a regular basis...Cannot advise about the exact quantity, just a continuous supply of it...
I'm really sorry if I'm not being very positive, just realistic
Good luck anyway. Maybe someone near you has an established refugium and would like to adopt him/her....

[chrisowu]

you're better off taking your mandarin back to the LFS. these guys need large (100 gallon plus), well established (1 year plus) setups with copious pods. With the setup right now, you are gonna spend a fortune getting pods to feed the guy! take him back while you still can and save the heartache and your wallet. I think everyone here has learned through trial and error. mine was adding a CBS to a tank full of feather dusters! Good luck!!!

[mcox33]

I would say take it back to the store. But if they refuse and they might (being as they lied to you to sell it to start with) Then I would find a local club and see if someone will take it off your hands or house it for you til you can figure out a solution. I have a 90 and can keep them but it was well over a year old before I got mine.

[Randall_James]

[welcome]

Sorry for your problem, glad you found help here

[delsol650]

I you haven't found any one... you could try this article by MELEV' pretty good... I just turn off my pumps and feed my mandarin separately from the other tank inhabitants.. I feed him cyclopeeze granuals and sinking pellets... he is now starting to gain weight. This should help you out...

http://melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

[Duddly01]

If its belly is looking sunken in, it may be too late already, sorry. I would certainly contact your LFS and inform them of the mistake they have made and hope they don't steer anyone else wrong.

Assuming they wont take it back, somethings that people have had luck with are capelin roe, sushi fish eggs. You can get them at your local asian market for about $4.00. Baby brine fed selcon once a day for added nutrients will often help as well. Adding the pods will help, but they will eat a $20 bottle of tigger pods in less than a day.

As you now know 2 months is just not long enough. Honestly without a safe haven for pods to reproduce without preditation a mandarin can wipe out a 150gal established tank in a matter of weeks, maybe days. If you want to keep a Mandarin you have enough live rock, IMHO, but you just need to let your tank mature, setup rock rubble piles and such for the pods to safely reproduce and set up a refugium. After that give your tank at least 6 months to mature. You will see pod population explosions over the first couple months, then dieoff, then explode again to finally settle down.

Some will tell you you need a 100gal or better tank but I have a 50gal, with a refugium. My cheato for my fuge came from a fellow reef central member loaded with pods so that also helped. I also dose my tank and refugium daily with 20 drops each of phytofeast live to feed to pods and I am culturing brine and tigger pods in seperate cultures as well. It takes a little extra work, but it is worth it, they are wonderful little fish.

[rustybucket145]

You can create pod safe havens by creating rubble piles or rubble zones using gutter guard. But I'm sorry to say that 2 months just isn't going to cut it..... I would take him back, get you either a fuge or some rubble zones setup, let them marinate for 6months to a year and then get yourself a mandarin.

You say you have seen some molts.... Just for reference, when I look into my fuge I can literally see thousands of pods of several varieties scurrying around.

Of course you don't have to have that many to support a mandarin but you should at least be able to look in the tank at any given time and locate several pods without looking too hard.

Just my $.02

Best of luck with whatever you may decide.

[tkeracer619]

I just added a manderin to my 150 at the 1 year mark.

Pretty fish but I would take it back untill you can care for it with minimal needs. Its worth a year or so wait, and you wont have to go through all the special feeding.

[Randall_James]

I was going to add that purchasing pods to feed the guy like you did will pretty much bankrupt you. The pods you purchase are for starting a self sustaining population. It will certainly help you, but you just do not have the volume of water to support an adequate supply.

If the store is not willing to own up to the bad sale, just tell us who they are

[Duddly01]

Originally posted by Randall_James
I was going to add that purchasing pods to feed the guy like you did will pretty much bankrupt you. The pods you purchase are for starting a self sustaining population. It will certainly help you, but you just do not have the volume of water to support an adequate supply.

Agreed about the expense, they are $20 a bottle of 500 or so. A Mandarin would wipe that out in less than a day. At $20 a day your Mandarin would be more expensive to feed than most college students.

The water volume wouldn't be a problem, the lack of places to hide would be. I am culturing tigger-pods in a 1qt. mason jar and they are starting to fill it up quite nicely, though to get that kind of growth I do keep the water pretty green with phytofeast. ech!

[thecichlidpleco]

Why, Why, Why?
It is okay we are all impulsive at the start, but you can do the rubble idea, but use a strawberry basket. Put the rubble down then cover it with the basket and weigh it down with some larger live rock. In case you don't want a fuge, this is sort of a way to keep everything out while creating a safehaven for pods without a fuge.

[chrisstie]

My 55g is only at the 3 month mark but I have a fuge and pods literally crawling all over the place its so creepy. I am still going to wait some time in the summer months if not longer to add a mandarin depending on how well the pods and breeding go. they have rubble piles and chaeto to grow in.. can't recommend this without it =\


Although, if i could find one to accept prepared foods as well and evidenced before purchasing, with so many pods already is there a reason to wait 6 months to a year in this specific case?

[Randall_James]

Populations will surge in the early days of a tank. Your abundance of pods will soon decline rather steeply as they deplete the food source they have now. Many small organisms go through these "boom to bust" cycles in the first year as the tank stabilizes.

One month you have pods, next month it could be hydroids and yet another month mini brittle starfish. It is just a cascade effect that happens.

A ripple through the food chain I guess would be the best way to look at it.

[Duddly01]

Originally posted by chrisstie
Although, if i could find one to accept prepared foods as well and evidenced before purchasing, with so many pods already is there a reason to wait 6 months to a year in this specific case?

6 months should be okay, you've only got 3 to go.
If you can find a small one that is proven to be eating prepared foods, unlikely as it is, I wouldn't see why not. Make certain it is actually eating & swallowing it. They will try different foods, decide they don't like it, and spit it out. The odds of finding one at a LFS that is eating prepared foods already is really slim, but good luck.

[Randall_James]

6 months on a 55 really is not enough if ever IMO... I have seen them starve in mature 75G tanks with good pod populations when they went in.

You will be hard pressed to find a Mandarin eating prepared foods in a LFS unless it has been there for some time (they typically are gone in a day or 3 in the stores I have visited)

Not saying it wont happen (never say never) but it is really unlikely as the training can take weeks if it works at all.

[dc]

If you're stuck with it, I also suggest Melev's diner. Worked for me, and I imagine many others. After I got my male to start eating, I took the jar out and he eats anything now.

[petoonia]

Chances are if you take it back to the LFS they will just put it in a 10 or 20 gallon tank with hardly any live rock, and sell it to the next person that comes along. You would be better off finding someone local to you that has an established system. Unless you can get it too accept prepared foods.

Good luck!!!!

[chrisstie]

Thanks for the tips guys I actually have a hobbyist LFS that isn't trying to push volume, but rather quality. She would hold onto something for a month or two if she had to make sure it would accept prepared foods. I will wait a few more months before asking for one though