How long does it take the pods to populate?I got a can of those red pods from a LFS like 3 weeks ago for my refug/sump. I am starting to see spots of red algae on the side panel.
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spots of red algae are not signs of pods
you can sometimes have pods populating in you tank during your cycle
you may also see pods in your tank after it cycles but the question is are there enough to support a mandarin the answer is no
why you may ask it's because the pods you are seeing will die off slowly after your cycle, pods will start to populate over time as your tank matures usually
around 6 months to a year , as you are waiting to add your mandarin you may add other fish some of which may consume pods this will diminish your pod population rapidly in small tanks up to around 30g, pod populations have a better chance on increasing there populations in larger tanks
mandarins can eat from 1500 to 2000 pods a day if not more and can wipe out a large population of pods in a matter of days
I got lucky when I got my mandarin I was able to train hm to eat other foods besides pods ,brine shrimp , pellets , frozen mysiss , also live baby mysiss
it cost me a fortune to buy pods and other foods for him all the time until I started to raise my own food, pods ,brine ,and mysiss , it was a lot of work
just to feed a mandarin
I had my mandarin over 3+ years I lost the poor guy during a transfer over to my 90g tank
will I ever get another mandarin I would love too. but do I really want all that stress of raising all kinds of foods for him to survive it was hard work ,
yes they are beautiful fish but the odds to me getting another I got better odds getting hit with a snowball in july
I had also posted a link in post 4 above that will provide more info