Muffin87
Active Member
The Finicky Fish:
My intention is to introduce at the same time:
The Automated Frozen Food:
I've pretty much read anything I could find on mandarin frozen food training in the last 2 yrs. I've never got a Mandy because I'd hate to just starve one because I didn't plan this carefully. From what I've read, most Mandies will eat lobster eggs and live brine shimp, and can be easily trained to eat frozen brine to start with.
Could Mandy owners who trained their Mandies to eat frozen confirm this?
My long-term plan is to dose several times a day (minimum 4 o 6 times a day) a mixture of:
I've hooked up the return line of my 50G to a dosing pump with 3/8 tubing, which leads to a mini fridge/freezer that can go down to 32F.
I modded the dosing pump so it can reverse to prevent any food from spoiling outside the fridge/freezer.
My idea is that by feeding a varied mixture of different foods several times a day the mandarins will eventually acclimatise to a frozen diet.
The Live Food:
I've also set up a 2G zooplancton reactor in the cabinet. This will dose live pods automatically, while the reactor will be re-filled with water from the tank, and live phytoplankton from the fridge. Hopefully the culture is not gonna crash with continuous small water changes from the main tank.
The filtration / nutrient control:
Depending on what will turn out to work best in terms of NO3/PO4 balance:
I could also try a mandarin diner.
My intention is to introduce at the same time:
- a male blue mandarin;
- a female spotted mandarin;
- a female red ruby dragonet
The Automated Frozen Food:
I've pretty much read anything I could find on mandarin frozen food training in the last 2 yrs. I've never got a Mandy because I'd hate to just starve one because I didn't plan this carefully. From what I've read, most Mandies will eat lobster eggs and live brine shimp, and can be easily trained to eat frozen brine to start with.
Could Mandy owners who trained their Mandies to eat frozen confirm this?
My long-term plan is to dose several times a day (minimum 4 o 6 times a day) a mixture of:
- lobster eggs;
- frozen brine;
- liquid-preserved pods;
- chopped up mysis;
- live phytoplankton to increase pod population (tho it's always gonna be poor).
I've hooked up the return line of my 50G to a dosing pump with 3/8 tubing, which leads to a mini fridge/freezer that can go down to 32F.
I modded the dosing pump so it can reverse to prevent any food from spoiling outside the fridge/freezer.
My idea is that by feeding a varied mixture of different foods several times a day the mandarins will eventually acclimatise to a frozen diet.
The Live Food:
I've also set up a 2G zooplancton reactor in the cabinet. This will dose live pods automatically, while the reactor will be re-filled with water from the tank, and live phytoplankton from the fridge. Hopefully the culture is not gonna crash with continuous small water changes from the main tank.
The filtration / nutrient control:
Depending on what will turn out to work best in terms of NO3/PO4 balance:
- Fuge;
- drop-dosed Tropic Marin Elimi-NP (Carbon dosing for tanks with PO4 > 0.1 ppm);
- Oversized skimmer;
- Clarisea Automatic Fleece Filter;
- drop-dosed Lanthanum Chloride;
- GFO;
- Sulphur Denitrator (got automatic alkalinity test setup in case the Sulphur denitrator devours my Alk).
- Ozone to help with the organics bonanza;
I could also try a mandarin diner.
