how many pods are enough?

[iPEProjects.com]

i have a 72 reef with 2 clowns 2 anemones, acroporities, spaghetti, button polyps etc....and i was thinking about a mandarin goby. at night when i shine a flash light on the tank, (it's hard to count) there are lots of pods (mostly under 1.25cm) on the back wall, in the algae, and all over the rocks. during the day i only see them in the pod piles. if i purchase a mandarin, i want to be assured that it wont starve, or eat the entire population.

knowing this, do you think a mandarin would be a wise fish to have, given the food source and tank setup?

thanks a lot
kevin

[Agu]

The issues with a mandarin are food (pods), volume, and competitors. A 72 should be adequate, esp if you have good hiding/breeding places for the pods. You may want to feed DT's or the homegrown equivalent to support the current pod population. In addition be sure you have no other animals that will compete with the mandarin for food. A six line wrasse for example will decimate the mandarins food supply, then eliminate the mandarin when food is in short supply.

Agu

[iPEProjects.com]

thanks for the info.

one last thing about the pods..ive only had my tank for about a year so i dont have much experience with pods, but they seem kind of big. i would assume that the mandarin could eat them, but they are about a cm each in length. i also have extrmemly tiny ones on the glass, but not as many as are in the rocks.

please let me know what you think.
kevin

[iPEProjects.com]

another followup question. do mandarins go for amphipods or copepods... can see many more amphipods (1cm about) than i do copepods. i know i have copepods but recently i have been cleaning the glass more and i havent seen as many.

i am just wondering if the mandarin will go for both, mainly because the amphipods are a LOT bigger. also, i have two clowns that go for the copepods and i wonder if they may compete? it is a 72 with about 120 lbs of live rock and a pod pile which lies in one corner and is about 8in tall.

all info appreciated.
kevin

[Flame*Angel]

As a fellow RC member pointed out some time ago, mandarins are cuko for copepods (well, actually I think it was cocopods but she meant copepods :) ). Amphipods are very useful critters but, as you suspected, are much to big for a mandarin.

I have been fattening my mandarin with baby brine shrimp. I just hatch them and feed them right away while they still have that nutritous yolk sack attached. It's very easy, doesn't take much time or money and will benefit more than just your mandarin.