Please help me feed my Psychedelic Mandarin

[skripo]

I am looking to start a culture of Phytoplankton and amphipods. I need a seed culture. Anyone know a place or person that can sell me one in Montreal?

[Scorch268]

have you already purchased one? How many lbs of LR? Start dosing w/ photoplakten(sp?) If you already bought one, i would take it back, they require a year of copepod population at least

[daveNandi]

try Inland Aquatics http://www.inlandaquatics.com/

[Aquabucket]

Take a look at your pod count tonight with a red flashlight to get an idea of what kind of population you have.

Good luck on your culturing. Inland Aquatics is a good source IMO. I think Garf can help you out as well.

[vinstr]

Scorch is right- If you are just now starting to develop a pod population, take the Mandarin back- you will never get a large enough population going before he starves to death- He is going to eat whatever you little you do have and decimate the population- You need at least 6 months to a year to build up a sustainable population...The LFS should not have sold you one

[Aquabucket]

It would help if we knew what size tank and how well established it is. I was assuming that you met these requirments before placing the Mandarin in your tank and just wanted to culture more food. I would if I had one even in the largest of tanks.

[catdoc]

I added a pod culture to my tank (Inland Aquatics) 2 weeks after I set up my tank. I've got pods everywhere--night AND day. How do I know how many is "enough"? I'd like to add a mandarin someday, that's why I got the culture in the first place. Just a bit curious as to how I know if there are enough or not. I've not even started adding any fish, so the mandarin is a long way off. I've considered getting another culture just to help things along but didn't know if that'd be overkill. (Tank set-up Nov 23, btw.)

Christy

[Scorch268]

Christy, its really difficult to say, more than the actual population is their breeding ground. is there a safe place away from fish with rubble that lets them breed so they all dont get eaten by fish?

[skripo]

I know I am going to regret saying this but it is in a Nano Cube. I intend to aquaculture pods and feed it to the tank. There is no way it will self sustain.

[Scorch268]

mmmmm, I would seriously reconsider the mandarin in a nano, ive seen them well over 3 inches, much too big for a nano imo.

[catdoc]

Scorch, I've got 90 lbs of very porous live rock and a good bit of rubble/shells. There's plenty of room for more LR and rubble though. I was reading about using the cups w/rubble to farm the pods, sounds like a good idea. I don't have the sump or refugium set up yet, so I'll hold off until those are going strong too. I've read so many posts about starving mandarins that I'm taking it slow but I'm still afraid that I'll rush it. (Especially when I see yet another starving mandarin at the LFS. :( )

[Scorch268]

thats a smart way to approach it! I was so tempted to buy one the other day, but thoughts of them starving was so tragic that I resisted :)

[skripo]

Well one way or another this little guy was gonna starve at the LFS. I hope I can get a culture started in time. I have the equipment all setup, I just need to get the cultures locally.

[padixon2]

hey...it sounds like i can get one of those starving fish. I have a about 3-4 inches of crushed coral and sand in my 45gal hex, and the copepods just appeared one day. I guess i had a couple in a Shipment of coral. Anyway the copepods are all over the place. I can see about 10-15/sq.in day and night along the glass. I have a canister filter too and they are swimming around in there too. I guess they breed in that thing....what do you guys think?

[nanocat]

I think you're dreaming. A mandarin can "clear" your tank of pods in less than a week. Seriously folks, you need a BIG tank, a mature tank, and a refugium with a LOT of pods.

And there's NO way a mandarin belongs in a nano cube. :(

Whether he starves at the LFS is immaterial, that would be on them. Putting him in a nano cube is on you...and he will starve to death. You can't culture enough copepods in a nano to support him.

[Scorch268]

I agree 100% w/ nanocat, it sounds like your rationalizing to yourself about the mandrin.

[skripo]

Can we just relax and get back to the point of the post? I KNOW I CANNOT CULTURE enough pods in the Nano Cube. That is why I want to culture them EXTERNALLY and target feed him.

Now if you cannot give me a culture source can we skip the lectures?

I am not a total idiot, I do have a 180 gallon reef that is nearly ready to fill.

[skripo]

You know, I just read over the post and realized that I may not have been very clear. I fully intend to culture the pods in a 10 gallon tank with live phyto and target feed my mandarin.

I have already set up the 10 gallon and built a target feeder (20cc syringe connected to hard airline with flexible tubing)

If that works I will get a seahorse and they can exist together in their target fed heaven.

[pickle311]

Originally posted by nanocat
I think you're dreaming. A mandarin can "clear" your tank of pods in less than a week. Seriously folks, you need a BIG tank, a mature tank, and a refugium with a LOT of pods.

And there's NO way a mandarin belongs in a nano cube. :(

Whether he starves at the LFS is immaterial, that would be on them. Putting him in a nano cube is on you...and he will starve to death. You can't culture enough copepods in a nano to support him.

I wouldn't say that it can't be done, but yes it would be difficult. In fact, I did a search a couple of hours ago for mandarin and found a post by someone who had been successful in keeping a mandarin in his nano. He even said that he could not see where his pod population had been deminished at all. It can be done, just not recommended. But this is also only one person out of several that has tried it.

[adrinal]

Originally posted by catdoc
Scorch, I've got 90 lbs of very porous live rock and a good bit of rubble/shells. There's plenty of room for more LR and rubble though. I was reading about using the cups w/rubble to farm the pods, sounds like a good idea. I don't have the sump or refugium set up yet, so I'll hold off until those are going strong too. I've read so many posts about starving mandarins that I'm taking it slow but I'm still afraid that I'll rush it. (Especially when I see yet another starving mandarin at the LFS. :( )


OO cups n rubble I will use that.

I have 5 10g refugiums in the making (live in a condo had to go virtical :) but the cups in my existing sump would give me a sort of head start and easy to clean, thanks for mentioning this tip.

[nanocat]

Sorry, I thought you honestly thought you could put a mandarin in a nano and grow enough pods in THERE for him to live. Growing them in a fuge and target feeding should work.