Growing enough pods in a fuge to properly maintain a mandarin in a 29g?

[STiTCH87]

Can it be done? I have a 29g and really want a mandarin but ORA's mandarins have yet to look promising to me on a few levels and normal ones are around $18 which is cheap to afford, but I obviously want it to be healthy and live a nice long life. Can it be done? And more importantly, can it be done without having to buy copepods/tigerpods all the time?

 

[Turbosnail]

Do you have a sump or refugium?

 

[sagecx]

If you are talking about a AIO nano they dont have a refugium or space to make a very effective one. So you wont likely be able to keep a stable population of copepods. If you added a refugium or sump then it may be possible depending on its size but it would take some time to populate and most likely woundn't be enough.

Despite my own issues with Skiptons i would recommend you check out their mandarins when they have them in stock. They carry both ORA and wild ones and they tend to have a few wild ones that they have gotten to eat frozen. If you get one of those the pods are really a non issue since they can get their needs from frozen food. I got one from them about 5 months or so and it eats frozen mysis, cylopeez, and ova eggs. Its gotten much fatter than when i got him. and i dont think he costed more than $25 probably less.

 

[Royalty]

I have a mainderine I think it's a ora but i'm leaning towards a wild breed . I have a good size cope pods in my H.O.B CPR Refugium. but I notice that I needed to increase the flow so I added a maxii jet 1200 . But the flow still being restircted I also added a filter bag filled with carbon I notice they like playing in and around the filter bag . I started with little to no cope pods. They started growing in my H.O.B marineland filter I guess they came off of my LR lucky I haven't bought a singal trigger pod or cope pod container because of that. everytime I look into my CPR H.O.B refugium there's tons of cope pods just playing around the filter bag and cheato. I just wish more of them got into my DT. I added the carbon just to increase the clearity on the water in the H.O.B and my DT.

 

[jpnasty]

manderians are tricky, i tryed one b4 my 54g crashed and it was FILLED with pods and he still wouldn't eat and he staved to death:/

 

[STiTCH87]

No sump or fuge yet. I'd actually of set one up specifically for the ability to keep one of these since I have a 10g laying around that I was going to use to grow them in but since i'm hearing how tricky they are maybe I will attempt to buy one that's already trained to eat prepared foods.

You say you've had yours for 5 months now? Is the food overly expensive to keep on hand? I'd return it if it didn't eat at all within 4-5 days anyways just to be safe that it won't starve plus I always make the store feed a fish infront of me before I buy it (always) just to be safe though I know the transfer to my tank can stress it enough to not feed for awhile. But I have yet to have any fish resist the flakes I feed even first day home. Though obviously I know a mandarin wouldn't eat them.

I really wanted to go ORA from the start because I felt it was a great idea to buy one already trained on prepared right from birth, that and i'm a big captive-bred guy; I wanna preserve the natural species population in reefs whenever possible. But I had read dozens of reviews about 2-3 months back that were very negative about it and I guess many would not eat at all and starved or didn't eat enough and some would eat what few pods were in the tank instead of prepared foods, get a taste for pods, and then wouldn't want to eat any other food. Maybe they've fixed that issue since? Because I know it's always best to wait until the 3rd generation strain of any captive-bred species is produced before it is considered worth purchasing as far as many animals go.

 

[sagecx]

Its not expensive to keep the food, well more so than flakes but its not bad. Mysis shrimp is like $5 or $6 a pack and depending on how many fish you have in there with him that will eat the mysis as well it should last a good amount of time at least around a month if longer. As for Ova eggs or cylopeez just pick one and mix that in there as well. That costs more but will last a long time as you are only feed slivers of it each time.

I watched it eat at Skiptons and then purchased the types of food he was already eating. On the first few days he focused on pods and only nibbled on the frozen and then after that he moved on happily to eating whenever we feed the tank. He does seem to prefer the smaller mysis and with the eggs he will find them on the sand bed and eat them.

As for the ora mandarins i am not sure, i was told they are fed primarily the nutramar ova eggs and sometimes just dont have a interest in frozen mysis so that may be the problem but i have no first hand experience with them.

 

[STiTCH87]

Hmm maybe ill have to pick one up like that from Skiptons sometime or a similar LFS who does the same.

I already feed a brine/mysis mix once a week (cycled with flake and pellet, I feed every other day) so I already have that food down. I believe the OVA is around $8 a pack so that's very reasonable IMO too.

Hmm now it's a matter of decided if I wanna go with an ORA and take my chances, or wait and try and get a wild one that I know for sure will eat what I feed it. I'm just really not a fan of buying wild-caught fish when I can avoid it.

 

[fanaglethebagle]

If you get a fuge, when you have a visible amount of bugs in it you should be good to go Also, if you feed frozen I hear that the ORA mandarins are quick to pick it up

 

[STiTCH87]

Well I know that an ORA mandarin would be the easy way to go, but the thing is, the only place I know if of that has one is CRA and I called and I guess they're going for $70 so apparently ORA is charging a hefty penny for our LFS to get ahold of these things and the waiting list ordering them from ORA is huuuge. Underwater World has 8 people on wait.

I mean $18 wild or $70 ORA is quite the difference. Buuut... I know CRA would stand behind the product and show me it feeding on prepared food before i'd buy it. But it's a matter of if I could ever suck it up to pay that price when the same $70 could buy one of their maxima clams, and still have cash left over. Or a good amount of coral. Both of which easier to keep. =\

Why do the prettiest things have to be the most difficult things to own?!

 

[oceanprncss]

our 55g didnt have a fuge.. just HOB protein skimmer and bio wheel filter we had no problem with a mandrian.. used cycopleez and it eats that plus bugs it kind find.. all depends on the mandrian you get. we got ours from Jays in salem almost a year ago. just upgrade our tank to one with a fuge and its doing better...

 

[jimrawr]

I got an ORA Mandarin, Ive had him for almost two months. He's eaten frozen in my tank only a couple times, the rest of the time hes hunting pods. Its difficult to count on a ORA Mandarin that will eat frozen because they are often behind the rocks. To feed him you will have to be really patient and wait for him to come to the front of the tank. Then when he does, you will need to spray the food basically in his face and he will eat part of whats close to him. You will end up over feeding if the Mandarin cant hunt for pods.

Not the best fish, I think especially for a small tank

 

[MisFit]

Not a good idea in that tank size unless you make it a species specific tank with lots of macro algae and rubble.

 

[JTM4UG]

its very easy to train a mandarin as long as you can stop at the LFS a few times a week for the first 3 weeks or so

 

[STiTCH87]

its very easy to train a mandarin as long as you can stop at the LFS a few times a week for the first 3 weeks or so

For what? Arcti-Pods?