How do Refugiums Work?

[CleverBs]

I dont really understand how a Refugium works, what goes in it, how to get it to produce Copopods. Reason I want to know is I want to set up an external hang on the back Refugium to suport a Mandarin in my 25gallon tank. So how do I know when I have enough Pods to support a mandarin?

 

[Leighton79]

Its a hiding to nothing. You will need TONS of live rock and at least a year of tank maturity before you can even entertain a mandarin.

Yes they are stunning fish, but about 90% die through starvation.

 

[CleverBs]

Its a hiding to nothing. You will need TONS of live rock and at least a year of tank maturity before you can even entertain a mandarin.

Yes they are stunning fish, but about 90% die through starvation.

feeling like the time frame you are giving is rather extrema, I agree you need good amount of live rock and lots of pods but that should be able to be accomplished within a few months not a year. The pods should reproduce in extrema rates assuming they have a Refugium, hence the reason im interested in one.

 

[Leighton79]

Then do it your way and see how long the mandarin lasts.

They spend all day, every day hunting and eating them.

We are talking hundreds if not thousands of pods per day.

 

[xxStLxx]

Its a hiding to nothing. You will need TONS of live rock and at least a year of tank maturity before you can even entertain a mandarin.

Yes they are stunning fish, but about 90% die through starvation.

+1 on this

The tank needs at least a year if not more of maturity before you should even consider having a manderin. That year gives the tank time to settle and cycle properly. And thats given that you keep all of your water parameters prestine the entire time. Manderin's are very difficult to keep. I had one in my 200g set up that lived for 2 months then died because it ate all the pods in my tank and starved to death.

The refugium is basically a 2-5 gallon low flow area that has a DSB and a pound or so of LR with a plant light above it that you can turn on on opposite hours of your DT or just keep it on 24/7. You use it as a place to grow out different forms of macro algae (i.e. chaeto in most cases). This helps keep nuissance algae under control in your main tank. It can also be used to breed pods as the chaeto provides the perfect nesting ground for them and with the low flow rate they can thrive.

Again please dont go throwing advanced to expert care level fishes in your new to saltwater tank. Just because you may be expert freshwater keeper doesnt mean anything about the saltwater community.

 

[CleverBs]

well I was planning on getting a ORA one that excepts preped foods, I only want to have a good enough pod population for it to eat on while it gets used to everything.

 

[xxStLxx]

Just hold off on it till your tank is at least a year or so old. they can be a very fical fish. Ive had multiple throughout the years in my multiple tanks Ive had in the past, all with mixed results. Tried the having a fuge and sometimes it works other times not. But having the fuge is a great idea as it does help with keeping extra nutrients down and by growing macro algae in it, it keeps nuiscance algae out of your DT. It can also help keep your pH constant at night time when you usually see a pH swing

 

[Gti_Leo]

Its a hiding to nothing. You will need TONS of live rock and at least a year of tank maturity before you can even entertain a mandarin.

Yes they are stunning fish, but about 90% die through starvation.

in a way you're not totally right, you can always buy bottles of pods, only they get expensive, but i na large system you have have a huge pod growth that will reproduce and help creat a big enough colony to feed a mandarin and while they eat the pods you can try and train them on prepared foods

 

[Leighton79]

Yep, a bottle a day at £10 a bottle (here in the UK anyway) = £70 per week (roughly 100 bucks) they claim there's 1000 pods per bottle, but it never looks like it when I've bought them on occasion in the past.

Seems expensive to me? Have you won the lotto?

Or just let a tank mature and do it for free.

OP's choice I guess....

 

[Gti_Leo]

a bottle is good enough for a week of feedings, plus if you have a fuge you can grow them in there and they will spreed, or once they do you can take a few rocks from the fuge and put them in the main display. they will spreed and still continue to grow in the fuge

 

[xxStLxx]

It still takes a while to seed the tank with pods and get them to reproduce at a rate in which the mandarin doesn't eat them all. Think it's a 25g nano, even with the fuge it will be difficult

 

[CleverBs]

well we will see how it plays out, I know that my LFS has some large 3-4" blue mandarins that eat prep foods and have for some time. I may grab one of them if they still have them when Im ready and after I see them eat prep foods a few times. I was talking to him today and he said I could come in every day for feeding for him to show me the fish eating. they are in tanks with hardly any live rock and are healthy and large so they must be eating prep foods. They are from another person who turned his reef into a fowlr to keep triggers and what not so he got rid of them.

 

[Leighton79]

It still takes a while to seed the tank with pods and get them to reproduce at a rate in which the mandarin doesn't eat them all. Think it's a 25g nano, even with the fuge it will be difficult

Exactly right +1,000,000

 

[Gti_Leo]

thats why i said with a large enough tank a 25g isn't big enough

 

[BallinCrew10]

The ones that eat prepared foods have been known to just stop out of the blue and only eat pods. A 25 will be extremely difficult to sustain their needs. With very low success rates, mandarins are a fish best left in the ocean IMO.

 

[Starblenny]

+99999999999. A small nano isn't suited for a mandarin, unless you have a 70gal refugium filled with rocks and cheato hooked up to it. Even if it eats prepared food, it can stop eating it out of nowhere. I've seen people who owned mandrains died of starvation because they prefered the taste of pods instead of pellets or frozen fish food.

Even if the tank is a year old, a mandarian would wipe out the pod population in days for a nano tank. Unless you are into pod breeding or willing to buy live pods every 5 days for as long you have it, I'd say save your money and pass on it.