Mandarinsfish...can you grow enough copepods for 34g. reef?

[duganderson]

I have a 34 g. Red Sea that will have a Drop 1.2x scrubber. I'm thinking about getting a mandarinfish. How hard is it to grow enough Codepods to keep it alive? If so, how often do you add the Copepods to the tank?

Any plans or designs or ideas for how to grow copepods would be much appreciated?

Thanks in advance, Doug

[aaron86]

Sump with a large refugium full of cheato does the trick


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[duganderson]

I don't have a sump on my tank and don't plan to add one.

[aaron86]

I wouldn't recommend a mandarin then


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[ThRoewer]

I had a small pair in a 18" cube (25 gallon) for a year. I added them 2 weeks after setting up the tank. In the beginning the tank had no sump or refugium, though I had external tigger pod cultures.
By now I have them in my 100 gallon tank.

So it is doable in small tanks, but I would not recommend it unless you manage to keep also several pod cultures.

Here 3 threads where I explained how I culture tigger pods:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2593258

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2589328

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2592312