Mandarins : copepods and amphipods
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baby brine shrimp. And paulb's feeder. I use this one.
www.bulkreefsupply.com
Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish
No Aeration, Heat, or Tubing Required! Brine Shrimp Direct's Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish is probably the easiest to use hatchery on the market today. The unique design keeps all the unhatched eggs and shells in the outer ring, while the hatched shrimp will seek out the light and swim to the open...
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ichthyogeek
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^^
And start culturing amphipods or copepods outside of the tank if you don't decide to make a PaulB feeder.
And start culturing amphipods or copepods outside of the tank if you don't decide to make a PaulB feeder.
OP
OP
hyeclass
Well-Known Member
baby brine shrimp. And paulb's feeder. I use this one.
Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish
No Aeration, Heat, or Tubing Required! Brine Shrimp Direct's Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish is probably the easiest to use hatchery on the market today. The unique design keeps all the unhatched eggs and shells in the outer ring, while the hatched shrimp will seek out the light and swim to the open...
by the time shrimp hit the floor it's already gone, i have tangs in the tank and they eat crazy lol even though they're not hungry they will still eat it
pbrown
Active Member
I used to have a larger tank with a mandarin and he ate blood worms right from a pipet when I fed him. Also ate the coepods in the tank. As soon as I put the pipet in the water he would come to it and feed. I am not sure if this is unusual but I had him for many years and he was a very healthy eater. Hope yours will take to them. Make sure to buy a good brand of blood worms, very red/bloody. Some brands are weak and almost clear/brown. You want little/bloody worms.what comes to Mandarins, feeding copepods and amphipods, i don't have the supply anything else they can eat?
pbrown
Active Member
I have a 29 gallon tank and have a TON of copepods. This actually happened by accident. Sometimes we get lucky. In my small tank the overflow was too strong so I took a Nylon knee high(tan) and used filter media inside to disperse the flow. (+ for being a gal reefer). In a month the knee high was crawling with coepods. I had seeded my tank with coepods 6 months ago, but now they are EVERYWHERE. The tank wall by the overflow/stocking hatchery I leave with a bit of algae on it and you can see a wall of coepods. Loving this as my goal is a mandarin goby later this year. I am building up my food source. I want to do a sump next year, but so far my tank has been doing really well without one. The nylon does get coralline algae on it and well as green algae --the turbo and margarita snails groom this every few days. Have fun growing the critters. They go into a frenzy when I feed the tank plankton....FYI...they love it.
Yes, it's true that copepods will grow in the main tank as much as they will the sump or refugium. But the issue is that their populations can quickly be completely consumed by mandarins and other fish. That's why people talk about needing a large tank with a lot of live rock, plus limiting the number of copepod eating fish in the tank. With that approach, you're basically figuring that the mandarin can't get all of the pods and the ones that survive can continue to multiply.
The refugium/sump helps by providing a safe place for the pods to keep multiplying without predation while continually releasing some back into the main tank.
Some mandarins can be trained to eat other stuff as well. Search for some of the threads about people training mandarins. Reportedly the captive-bred Biota ones are brought up eating frozen food as well.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
Isopods (those little bug-like critters you often see on the glass and rocks), Amphipods, and benthic copepods like Tisbe generally reproduce quite well in a reef tank as long as you either have enough porous rock or coarse enough gravel. Often you even have Mysids in the tank, though those are more competition to mandarins than food due to their speed and restlessness. But they are good to train mandarins to go after dead (frozen) mysis that may make it to the ground.
Ideally you would have a refugium where they can have a safe space to constantly replenish the tank's population.
Brine shrimp are useful as a supplemental filler food but not nutritious enough to be the primary food source.
Ideally you would have a refugium where they can have a safe space to constantly replenish the tank's population.
Brine shrimp are useful as a supplemental filler food but not nutritious enough to be the primary food source.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
Never could get mine to go after eggs but all would sooner or later pick up on eating frozen mysis and brine shrimp.
TheShrimpNibbler
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Paul B designed a feeder that sits on the bottom that you put the brine shrimp in. They get stuck in a mesh and sit there on the bottom for the mandarin to eat them.
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hyeclass
Well-Known Member
I am running refugium in my sump
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hyeclass
Well-Known Member
baby brine shrimp. And paulb's feeder. I use this one.
Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish
No Aeration, Heat, or Tubing Required! Brine Shrimp Direct's Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish is probably the easiest to use hatchery on the market today. The unique design keeps all the unhatched eggs and shells in the outer ring, while the hatched shrimp will seek out the light and swim to the open...
You know any where I can buy the amphipods or copepods eggs
I bought the hatchery dish also bought the eggs shrimp
I use the shrimp eggs from BRS. And I use the phyto and copepod culures from Poseidon Reef Systems. Amphipods you can get easily from Indo Pacific Sea Farms. They reproduce like crazy in my refugium.
Clownfish_Boy
Well-Known Member
They love annelid detritus worms. I once had a healthy population of them in a FOWLR on which a mandarin thrived.
I could feed mine live black worms that it would take from tweezers and it also would eat some frozen foods, sadly I think he was still not getting enough food even though I was seeding my tank every 2 weeks with pods and after a year he didn't make it. Broke my heart. When I had to put my hand in the tank for whatever reason she would come and sit on my hand.
ThRoewer
Valuable Member
Google is your friend:
amphipods for sale - Google Search
www.google.com
www.aquaculturenurseryfarms.com
Amphipods & Copepods -500
Our Live Copepods for Sale are beneficial in a variety of ways. Copepods eat detritus and algae as well as a natural food source for mandarin gobies scooter blennies as well seahorses, however many fish, corals and other invertebrates enjoy eating copepods.
aquariumdepot.com
You will want to seed your tank with copepods, which we have available. If you are able to train on prepared foods, small sized foods can be used in conjunction with its natural food source. I find our DragonRoe works great while also a zoomed product called can o cyclops. If captive bred its a little easier to train to eat prepared foods. ~Shaun Kwhat comes to Mandarins, feeding copepods and amphipods, i don't have the supply anything else they can eat?
Clownfish_Boy
Well-Known Member
$60 to seed a tank with pods ? That is what it costs to do it with pods and phytoplankton from the Algae Barn - ridiculous ! It should not cost over $20. If you can find someone with Annelid Detritus Worms in a tank, you can get them to give you a culture of them and establish them in your tank for nothing. The population will reproduce at a fast enough rate to support a mandarin.
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