Pods for a Madarin

[Ranchhand02]

I currently have a nano cube 28 gallon tank and the only fish I have in the tank are a pair of clowns. I have several LPS and SPS corals in the thank. I am really wanting to add a mandarin to my tank, and I know I need a good population of pods to keep one. I am looking at the 5280 pod mix from algae barn. I am also setting up a small refugium in one of the back chambers and adding some chaeto to it to export some nutrients and provide some cover for the pods. My question is do you think the pods will be able to reproduce enough to maintain a population to feed the mandarin or will I have to continually seed my tank with new pods?

[lapin]

Not to be a party pooper but I personally would not attempt to keep a mandarin in a tank that small esp with 2 other good size fish. You might be able to raise enough pods to feed it and the clowns with your fuge. If you could get it to eat other things like blood worms that would be a bonus. With a small tank full of pods you will be surprised how many they can eat and how fast the supply is diminished. They are also a shy fish by nature, feeding at dusk in the wild, and need plenty of places to hide to be truly comfy. These are my experiences and your results may vary. If you do go for it I wish you the best.

[Ranchhand02]

That is what I was afraid of. I did not know if I could keep enough pods in the tank to keep the fish healthy. I have heard mixed reviews on getting mandarins to eat prepared foods. I would like to have one, but I also don't want to have to constantly be adding pods to my tank either

[mcgyvr]

Just another vote to "pass" on that fish..
Its not a good choice for your tank.. Such is life..

[Uncle99]

I add newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii feed with phyto for an hour before serving to a dark and pumps turn off tank for 1 hour....so they can hide.....Once per week or two.....no problem with the mandarin for over a year now....you can do it but you would have to manage the situation....

[NS Mike D]

29 gallon with a 4.6 gal hob cpr fuge. +1 on the above posts. it can be done but it's a lot of work and you'll probably need to subscribe to the monthly pod purchase to restock the tank.

in addition to pods and newly hatched brine, mine will also eat frozen shrimp eggs and frozen cyclops. i couldn't get him to go feed inside a jar, so the clown and chromis make it hard not to overrfeed and thus annoy the sps

i am adding a 10 gal sump to increase the pod population and improve filtration.

it's a lot of work for one fish that hides a lot

[KarenLR75]

Agree with the size of the tank not being a good fit. I wish it was though as mandarins are one of our favorite fish.

We got lucky many years ago when we got a mandarin (50 gallon tank) but did not know it needed pods (no refugium, etc.) but we fed live brine to a Lion Fish we had and thankfully for us that particular mandarin did eat live brine. We had it for 5 years before we killed off all our fish by over-populating it.

We were heartbroken and angry with ourselves and with our first daughter being born around that time, we shut the tank down and didn't get back into the hobby until this past year.

We did learn a lot in that 5 year period though about the fish we had, albeit almost always AFTER their purchase. When we set up our current 112 gallon, we knew we were going to get a mandarin and we knew he'd be one of the first purchases as we were also fortunate that our 1st mandarin wasn't as shy as many of them are. We figured we could at least help our odds out if he was one of the first fish to add and that all of the smaller, peaceful fish we added after that had the run of the tank for months before we added our first semi-aggressive, larger fish.

At least you knew you needed pods, and to get the...cheato..and you have a refugium of some type. We didn't know that the 1st time, but we studied a lot for this tank. We also knew who in our tank might compete with our mandarin for pods (melanurus wrasse). We got our pod population established and thriving, but we still keep an eye on how he looks and we monitor the pod population frequently.

Our current mandarin is healthy, happy and is out in front of the tank quite a bit. He is actually the fish everyone ooh's and ah's over when they come to see the tank. He's like the hummingbird of the sea in the way he moves. I also think that within the given 'knowns' of a type of fish, there is also something that we never know until we have them in our tank and that is a specific fish's individual "personality", if you will...

Our mandarin is quite humorous actually, I posted a thread recently showing pics of 2 new additions to our tank, a white tail bristletooth tang and blue throat trigger and in every single picture the mandarin was photo bombing..lol.

IF you plan on getting a bigger tank some day, the mandarin can make a cool addition in my experience but I know what others have said about not getting to see theirs much can be true as well.

LOL...came back to edit with this additional rambling as I finally got EDIT CAPABILITY!! YAY!

[Sugar Magnolia]

Another vote to skip it, it's very rare for them to accept prepared foods and they spend the majority of their day hunting throughout the live rock for pods. A tank that small can't sustain a healthy fat Mandarin long term.

[SantaMonica]

Needs about 30 pounds of very-periphyton-covered rock, in order to grow enough pods by itself:

What is Periphyton?

Periphyton is what turns your rocks different colors. You know... the white rocks you started with in SW, or the grey rocks (or brown wood) you started with in FW. After several months or years, the rocks become a variety of different colors and textures. Why? Because the periphyton that has grown on it is a mix of different living things, of different colors, and thicknesses. And the important part is: It is LIVING. And the thicker it is, the more natural it is.

That's right: The colored stuff that has coated your rocks is all living organisms. Sponges, microbes, algae, cyano, biofilms, and of course coralline. After all, "peri" means "around the outside", and "phyto" means "plant". Ever slipped while walking on rocks in a stream? That's probably periphyton that made it slippery. It's a very thin coating on the rocks, sometimes paper thin.

There is a lot of photosynthetic organisms in periphyton, and this of course means that they need light; but they need nutrients too (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate). And as you might figure, they will be on the illuminated portions of the rocks. And they will grow to intercept food particles in the water, based on the water flow. Just think about how sponges orient their holes for water flow; the micro sponges in periphyton do it too but on a tiny scale.

What about under the rocks, in the dark areas? Well these periphyton don't get light, so they are primarily filter feeders. So they REALLY grow and position themselves to be able to intercept food particles. And they don't really need to fight off algae, because algae does not grow in the dark, so they have no need for anti-algae tactics like periphyton in illuminated areas has.

Reef studies have shown that at certain depths, more of the filtering of the water comes from periphyton and benthic algae than comes from the phytoplankton which filters the deeper water. And in streams, almost all the filtering is done by periphyton. So, what you have on rocks that are "mature" or "established" is a well-developed layer of periphyton; and all the things that comes from it.

This is why mandarin fish can eat directly off the rocks of an "established" tank (tons of pods grow in and consume the periphyton), but not on the rocks of a new tank. Or why some animals can lay their eggs on established rocks, but not new ones. Or why established tanks seem to "yo-yo" less than new ones. Even tangs can eat periphyton directly when it's thick enough. Yes periphyton can also develop on the sand, but since the sand is moved around so much, the periphyton does not get visible like it does on rocks. So thick periphyton on established rocks is your friend. And totally natural too. That's why there are no pure white rocks in reefs. Keep in mind though I'm not referring to nuisance algae on rocks; I'm only referring to the very-thin layer of coloring that coats the rocks.

But what happens when you "scrub the stuff off your rocks"? Well you remove some of the periphyton, which means you remove some of your natural filter and food producer. What if you take the rocks out of the water and scrub them? Well now you not only remove more of your natural filter and food producer, but the air is going to kill even more of the microscopic sponges in it. And what if you bleach the rocks? Well, goodbye all filtering and food producing for another year. It's an instant reduction of the natural filtering that the periphyton was providing.

However, what if you just re-arrange the rocks? Well, some of the periphyton that was in the light, now will be in the dark; so this part will die. And some of the periphyton that was in the dark will now be in the light, so it will not be able to out-compete photosynthetic growth and thus will be covered and die too, for a while anyway. And even if the light stays the same, the direction and amount of water flow (and food particles) will change; sponges that were oriented to get food particles from one direction will now starve. So since the light and food supply is cut off, the filtering that the periphyton was providing stops almost immediately, due only to your re-arranging of the rocks.

Starvation takes a little longer. The periphyton organisms won't die immediately, since they have some energy saved up; but instead, they will wither away over several weeks. So on top of the instant reduction in filtering that you get by just moving the rocks, you get a somewhat stretched-out period of nutrients going back into the water. And after all this, it takes another long period of time for the periphyton to build up to the levels it was at before: 1 to 2 years. Even changing the direction of a powerhead will affect the food particle supply in the area it used to be pointed at.

So a good idea is to try to keep everything the same. Pick your lighting, flow, layout, and try to never move or change anything. In other words, just like the rocks on a reef. It's a different way of thinking, but you should have a stronger natural filter and food producer because of it.