what do i have to do to be able to get a manderin

[philly]

I really want a manderin but i herd their hard to take care of and need special things growing naturally in the tank, like what?

 

[lando]

Manderin dragonets rely on a natual food source know as "pods". They rarely accept prepared foods and many slowly starve to death in an aquarim. You need LOTS of LR, in a 90 gal. 150-180 lbs, a deep and bed does not hurt. Manderins should only go into a well established reef tank. I did not add mine to my reef for over a year. I have a well-sustained pod population and it has been going great for five months now. It is a great fish, but put it on hold for a while.

 

[philly]

how do i make pods grow

 

[electrikat]

They have to come in the lr. You probably won't even know you have them until you find them in your filter media. You can look in your tank about an hour after the lights go off. Use a flashlight and you will see them and the little shrimp things crawling like spiders all over the rocks. Very cool and creepy at the same time. Maybe you could get some lr from a friends established tank with no die off to seed your tank.

 

[indy]

Or grab a bag of macro algae from your lfs or a fish buddy. When I introduced macro to my fuge I spent 3 hours staring at it before I found a pod moving around. Thing is absolutely crawling with pods, mysis, and brine now.

 

[lukasnca]

You can also buy some to seed your tank online. Check out http://www.reed-mariculture.com

 

[Crawling68]

I too want a Mandarin. My tank is only 3 months old, but i have pods everywhere. Is there any other requirements for them

 

[lukasnca]

Your tank is probably too small to sustain the pod population and a mandarin unless you find some other way to supplement the pods (large fuge for instance). Also you need to make sure that you don't have any other fish that eat pods.

 

[Foible]

Another good source of extra food for your mandarin is pods from the filter media of other SW tanks. I have 5 SW tanks but only one has a mandarin. I take the filter pads from all tanks and swish them in a white bowl of SW picking or flicking off the visible pods into the bowl with my fingers. I do this about twice a week and usually collect several hundred pods each time.

Please, at least a 75 gallon tank minimum with 100 or so lbs of LR and no other pod eaters.

 

[HoopsGuru]

Yes, unfortunately, if this is for your 25g tank...it is not going to be a large enough environment to keep a breeding population of pods unless you tie in a much larger "refugium" to feed into your main tank. They really do go through pods that quickly. What a hassle though, it would be easier to get a larger tank (55g or so), and use the 25g for the refugium if this fish is what you desire.