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ichthyogeek
04/12/2015, 05:59 PM
Okay, so mandarins need a crazy amount of copepods to survive in any tank, which they usually get by live rock in well established tanks. Some will take pellets and mysis, others won't. However, something doesn't sit with me here...is it the nutrition in a copepod that the dragonet needs? Or is the amount of energy within the numerous copepods the dragonet eats that are required? Or is it both? It seems to me that

Take for example, any of the larger seahorse species such as Hippocampus erectus, the lined seahorse. A few years ago, common advice was to feed them lots of brine shrimp, which are full of water, and lack in energy and nutrition. By simply getting the horses to eat mysis shrimp, which have lots of energy in their nutritious bodies, we managed to get it so that purchasing live brine shrimp was not necessary for seahorses anymore.

If I've gotten any of this wrong, feel free to correct me, as I'm still learning!

Dan_P
04/12/2015, 07:12 PM
Okay, so mandarins need a crazy amount of copepods to survive in any tank, which they usually get by live rock in well established tanks. Some will take pellets and mysis, others won't. However, something doesn't sit with me here...is it the nutrition in a copepod that the dragonet needs? Or is the amount of energy within the numerous copepods the dragonet eats that are required? Or is it both? It seems to me that

Take for example, any of the larger seahorse species such as Hippocampus erectus, the lined seahorse. A few years ago, common advice was to feed them lots of brine shrimp, which are full of water, and lack in energy and nutrition. By simply getting the horses to eat mysis shrimp, which have lots of energy in their nutritious bodies, we managed to get it so that purchasing live brine shrimp was not necessary for seahorses anymore.

If I've gotten any of this wrong, feel free to correct me, as I'm still learning!

Fish need to consume the right mixture and amount of nutrients to thrive. Copepods provide this. Also, some fish only eat live food. The problem with brine shrimp as a food source is that they do not contain the full range of nutrients for marine fish. Freshly hatch brine shrimp are an different story. Paul B has good success feeding his Mandarins with newly hatched brine shrimp.

CStrickland
04/12/2015, 07:34 PM
I wanted one for a while, and I heard tell that their digestive system is small, or something? So they are adapted to a constant supply of small food, or something?

I was gonna fact-check it and found this http://www.fao.org/fishery/affris/species-profiles/mandarin-fish/references/en/ that looked promising. But then I read all the sad threads where people bought them (fish prices should be commensurate to difficulty!) and they starved, so I gave up and never got around to tracking down the articles. Maybe it would be useful to you?

ichthyogeek
04/12/2015, 07:45 PM
I wanted one for a while, and I heard tell that their digestive system is small, or something? So they are adapted to a constant supply of small food, or something?

I was gonna fact-check it and found this http://www.fao.org/fishery/affris/species-profiles/mandarin-fish/references/en/ that looked promising. But then I read all the sad threads where people bought them (fish prices should be commensurate to difficulty!) and they starved, so I gave up and never got around to tracking down the articles. Maybe it would be useful to you?

Umm...those are a different mandarin fish. The delicious kind...

Ok, so why is there no pellet with the caloric and nutritional composition of multiple copepods of different species? Somebody would probably make lots of $ making these since they'd solve the problems about feeding dragonets, you'd only have to feed the mass of pellets equivalent to however many copepods a dragonet eats/day.

Speaking about copepods, why don't people just offer frozen blocks of solid 'pods? Not the amphipods that Hikari already sells, but stuff like Tisbe and Euterpina?

Finally, if mandarins have pharyngeal jaws, and can take down other foods, then why are pods always the animals emphasized?

I should have labelled this "Let's talk mandarin nutrition" or something like that...

CStrickland
04/12/2015, 08:32 PM
Ahahaha, good thing I didn't spend a lot of time finding the articles. Or like, buy a mandarinfish and be all "why she's not pretty like PaulB's?"
Who knew there was other fish besides the ones we put in our tanks lol

Anyway, good questions. I like where you're going with this.