Mandarin Feeding

[airizom]

I purchased a mandarin several weeks ago and he seems to be healthy and eating. I feed him brine shrimp and have about 70 pounds of live rock in the tank. I know that they eat amphipods and copepods, but i just started my tank about a month ago and I dont think the tank has enough of them in there to feed him long term and it is very difficult to feed just him the brine shrimp because the other fish get to it before he does. So i was thinking of buying some amphipods over the internet and was wondering how many i should purchase. He seems to search for food all day but seems healthy enough.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[saltcreep1025]

You can get pod kits from a lot of places. I have never bought a kit myself, but i just visited the inlandaquatics.com store and the people there were great and their facilities are AMAZING. I'm sure their kits would be of good quality. You may want to look into adding a refugeum to the tank so that the pods will have a place to reproduce before the mandarin munches them all down.

HTH

rosstifer

 

[kidkameleon3]

no no listen to me man, I am on the same mission as you and have been looking high and low for these things these guys http://www.aquaculturestore.com/products.html are the cheapest I can find and have super customer support. Get a few 100 mysid shrimp and maybe the amthopods, the plankton stuff will add to the tank but as far as food is concerned get the mysid

 

[saltcreep1025]

Actually, they have a kit at Inland Aquatics that has both gammarus amphipods and misis shrimp for 25 bucks. The other store is in FLA though, so it would probably be cheaper to get it from them after S&H charges.

 

[ccCapt]

I have also dealt with Paul at http://www.aquaculturestore.com. He is a great guy. I've chatted with him on a few occasions via ICQ and he has some great products and super prices. I highly recommend them.

 

[Guest]

I honestly think adding a Mandarin after the tank has only been running for is not such a good idea..Not to mention you said the Mandarin was added a few weeks ago which is even worse IMHO. Also I wouldn't even reccomend a Mandarin without at least 100lbs of live rock. If you plan on keeping it I would invest in those pods ASAP.