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Scooter Blenny Question
- Thread starter Andy V
- Start date
Cardiak
Non-member
Did he have a caved in belly when you bought him? Most of the dragonets that come from LFS are starved, anyways unless you have tons of rock work and a 90+ gallon tank the scooter shouldnt be able to stay hidden for very long during the day. And no they dont hide in caves they are always scooting along looking for food. At night they will bury themselves in the sand so dont be doing any crazy rockwork projects after dark 
Jackapatt
Non-member
Did he have a caved in belly when you bought him? Most of the dragonets that come from LFS are starved, anyways unless you have tons of rock work and a 90+ gallon tank the scooter shouldnt be able to stay hidden for very long during the day. And no they dont hide in caves they are always scooting along looking for food. At night they will bury themselves in the sand so dont be doing any crazy rockwork projects after dark
So true!
I've had good luck feeding them tons of live brine until they start eating the frozen.
No caved in bellies, they looked good. The mandarin is eating all the time and I have him him for a few weeks and he is fine. I will be looking for the scooter when I get home tonight. My LFS (which I really trust) told me a bottle of Tigger Pods every couple months would be adequate. He said he has had his mandarin for 2 years in his 30g and he puts in one bottle every 6 months. With the scooter and the mandarin, I was going to do every couple months. He couldn't have starved in 4 days if he was fine at the LFS. Besides, he was fine and eating before yesterday so I really doubt it starved. I will hope he is out and about when I get home.
Honestly I think thats pretty bad advice unless you have a refugium or some other protected area for the copepods to reproduce. I would build a bunch of "pod condos" if I were you. Basically take a handful of rubble and stuff it into a plastic strawberry container and cover with a plastic hair net, or use some kind of plastic mesh and zip ties to bundle the rubble together. This give the pods a safe place to reproduce where they are protected from the dragonets. An even better solution would be a ball of chaeto stuffed in the back of the tank but in a place where it still gets light. Another problem is that you now have 2 fish that occupy the same niche in a tank thats really not adequate for 1. This may lead to aggression and the starvation of at least one of them. Like Jackapatt said, I would also supplement with live brine and even occasional black worms while trying to convert them to frozen foods.
So if I build this pod condo...how big should it be? I don't have much room in the tank and a refugium is out of the question. Could a small tupperware (about 1-2 cup size) container work? I put the copepods in at night so the fish would not immediately eat them and they could make it into the rocks. My LFS said that's what he did and it's worked ok. This guy has never steered me wrong so I do trust him. If anything, the mandarin seems to be eating more lately. So just a little container and some rubble and a net?
Cardiak
Non-member
all you need for a pod pile is a bunch pebble sized rocks and stack them all together to make a rubble pile of them somewhere in your tank, put it in the back if you dont wanna see it. Basically its just so your pods will have somewhere where they can hide and multiply with out getting eatin. So if your dragonets can get into your podpiles crevices its not going to be doing the job. Also adding macro algae helps the pods hide and the practically swarm to where ever algae is so that would help you out as well.
Hopefuly your scooter will catch on to frozen and pellet food quickly (they usually do, all 3 of my dragonets eat right from my tongs and are like a bunch of puppies trying to keep up with it as I sway it around the tank to makem work for their lunch)
Hopefuly your scooter will catch on to frozen and pellet food quickly (they usually do, all 3 of my dragonets eat right from my tongs and are like a bunch of puppies trying to keep up with it as I sway it around the tank to makem work for their lunch)
Cardiak
Non-member
Curiousity ends up getting the best of them. My two scooters both eat all pellets and frozen foods. For pellets they eat formula 1 & formula 2 and some other brand I use. The nice part about the pellets is that I will just spray like 40 pellets into the tank and maby 10-12 will hit the ground before the other fish get to them and the scooters will immediatly hunt them all down and clean up.
The mandarian will only eat frozens, it likes mysis, cyclo (hard to feed cuz it breaks up so fast), brine, formula (red frozen stuff, too lazy to check its name), & reef plankton it will try and eat clam and squid but its usually too tough for it.
The scooters caught on to the prepared foods first, actually my male caught on the second week I had him. At first I would hold an entire cube of brine infront of him with the tongs, at first he was scared but then he eventually started nibbling at it and now they go berzerk the second the tongs enter the water. The mandarin took much longer but it eventually caught on from constaly swimming over corals one day it decided to nibble the food hanging out of their mouth. I saw that so I took out the tong and gave her another shot and vuala she was nibbling away.
The funny part is, I could pick up all three of these dragonets with the tongs if I wanted and they would never even flinch but if I put my hands near my male scooter he will go ape **** and spaz out now.
(as for the pod pile, the bigger the better obviously if it works for you just put it behind your rocks if you have any back pathways)
The mandarian will only eat frozens, it likes mysis, cyclo (hard to feed cuz it breaks up so fast), brine, formula (red frozen stuff, too lazy to check its name), & reef plankton it will try and eat clam and squid but its usually too tough for it.
The scooters caught on to the prepared foods first, actually my male caught on the second week I had him. At first I would hold an entire cube of brine infront of him with the tongs, at first he was scared but then he eventually started nibbling at it and now they go berzerk the second the tongs enter the water. The mandarin took much longer but it eventually caught on from constaly swimming over corals one day it decided to nibble the food hanging out of their mouth. I saw that so I took out the tong and gave her another shot and vuala she was nibbling away.
The funny part is, I could pick up all three of these dragonets with the tongs if I wanted and they would never even flinch but if I put my hands near my male scooter he will go ape **** and spaz out now.
(as for the pod pile, the bigger the better obviously if it works for you just put it behind your rocks if you have any back pathways)
2 days now, no scooter. I am assuming he is dead. My mandarin is looking skinny too. Anybody ever fed theirs Arcti Pods? Obviously the tigger pods aren;t working. And if the scooter is dead, I have a lot of rock that I can't really move. How important is it to find the body? I have a few hermits, some emeralds and 2 peppermints. Will they do the job or will leaving it in there kill everything?
I had absolutely no luck with arctic pods. No fish would touch them. I think the only thing I could get to eat them were LPS. Maybe I had a bad batch, I know it was close to their expiration date when I tried them. I would hatch some brine shrimp. Shut off all the flow in the tank and add a decent amount in the area of the mandarin. Give it a long break, like 30min-hour with no flow to feed on the brine. Do this several times a week. It may ruin your water quality though. They also sometimes take black worms, add them one at a time and let them suck them up. Best thing, put it in a separate tank with some rock and a ton of pod infested macro, or an in tank refugium and work on getting eating frozen before returning it to the tank.
Behrmon
pr (BearMon)
I think the Tiger pods are larger and less palatable than copepods, I could be mistaken but I think thats fairly accurate?
