Pods vs mini-brittle stars

[Ingy]

Ok, sitting here reading and thinking a bit too much. Here's what my thinker was thinking:

I want a manderin for my 110 gal tank. But when I look in the tank at night I still don't see enough pod population. But I have a really healthy mini brittle star population. And I know they let out a collective cheer every time I feed my corals the snow. Thinking about what they eat has me thinking that the stars might be out competing the pods for food.

So here's the thought that I'm considering. If a Harlequin Shrimp would at least thin the population of brittle stars, perhaps my pod population might peak faster.

Thoughts.

 

[jeffaquarius]

From what I have learned so far pods are suppose to be in refugeum to regenerate. In the main tank they are also delicious snack for other fish and they wont last.

 

[mr_X]

I don't think they eat the same thing. The swimming copepods that mandarins target I believe eat algae. The mysid/mysis are the omnivores as far as I've read. Do the mandarins eat the mysis/mysid when they are small enough? Probably, but I doubt your brittle stars are even putting a dent in their food supply.

 

[Sniperhank]

My only thought is, in a 110 you wouldn't see your mandarin very often. I lose mine in my 55 all the time.
Pods and mini bristles don't really interact from what I've seen. One filter feeds and the other consumes algae. That makes destroying the bristle population with a harlequin not worth it, that and keeping that shrimp alive would be costly.
I keep my mandarin alive with ordering pods from reefs2go.com every other month to keep my population high. I haven't been able to get a nice reproducing population in my tank's refugium, hence continuing to restock. The nice thing about reefs2go is that they offer BOGO deals and I end up getting ~2k pods in one go to release into my system. They are pretty nice looking pods too imo.

 

[mr_X]

If you get a mated pair you will see them. I used to have a mated pair that would do this dance ritual any time they weren't eating.
Picture this-


Over and over...

 

[Sniperhank]

Ok, that would be cool and worth it.