mandarin goby - feeding habits and the murder of the crabs

[LynnEdwards]

Thanks guys - I want to learn all of this but my whole tank appears to be going crazy now. It looks like I now have aptasia all over the glass out of no where.

I will try to get the book that you mentioned Timfish and read what it says.

[LynnEdwards]

Hey Lynn, did you start your tank with live rock or dead rock? And how long has the tank been up? A mandarin can decimate a pod population in short order if that population hasn't had much time to grow. At night, or if you haven't cleaned your glass for a couple of days, do you see little white dots all over the place? If so - good news - you are probably good to go for a mandarin. If not - there's a good chance your pod population is not well enough established to withstand the grazing habits of a mandarin yet. Mandarins are like hummingbirds, they hover constantly, have very high metabolisms, and feed pretty much nonstop. I was once told that you want to see your mandarin pecking every 3-5 sec. Most mandarins won't recognize frozen food of any sort, so the frozen liquid pod solution is not likely to elicit a response. As mentioned above, Tigger Pods are a cold-water species and won't establish a breeding population in your tank. The Reef Pods product RCA carries, or the Pods+ from ReefCleaners (get in on our group buy ending tonight!), are the best option for getting the pods in your tank going, but you'd need to remove the mandarin first to give the pods a fighting chance to breed before getting wiped out. There is a method for training a mandarin to eat frozen brine/mysis/etc., but it involves access to live food (Aquatek and AquaDome usually carry live brine), twice daily feedings, and a breeder net. There is a great thread here:

http://www.dfwmas.or...hp?f=47&t=91200

on this exact subject. The frozen-foods training method is about 2/3 of the way down. You also want to avoid other pod-eating fish such as wrasses and hogfish while you're trying to get the pods to establish themselves, and you want to have a place where the pods can breed without predators such as a refugium, cryptic zone, or LR rubble pile.

You might consider, for the good of the fish, rehoming him until your tank is better established. Mandarins are gorgeous but need to be considered an "expert only" fish as they require a well-established tank. Once they find the nooks and crannies of your tank they can be quite reclusive so you may not have the opportunity to get him out later if he starts to look skinny. If you start to see the lateral ridges on his sides stick out, or his belly looks sunken in, it's time for him to go to another tank before he starves to death.

This link is EXACTLY what I was asking - thanks.

[DerrickH]

Thanks guys - I want to learn all of this but my whole tank appears to be going crazy now. It looks like I now have aptasia all over the glass out of no where.

I will try to get the book that you mentioned Timfish and read what it says.

Being on the glass, I would assume these are astrea stars. If they are and you dont like them, get a harlequin shrimp, they will make short order of them.

When I set my tank up back in dec 2010, I did everything by the book and stuff still died. GHA still bloomed, diatoms still showed up in droves. Ive dosed chemicals, and trace elements, tried different SG levels, different light combos....ect...... Eventually I just stood back and let nature happen. That is when my tank finally "worked". Seems to me the only two things that are guaranteed to work in this hobby are time and patience. Just my .02c

Sorry for your loss on the MG. I lost one to a grumpy CBS...

[+Hydro]

It was probably stress that killed it. Most of our tanks are kept around 1.025-1.026 but the LFS stores keep their tanks as low as 1.019. For sensitive fish like a mandarin this is a huge jump in less than a couple hours. Lots of fish can adjust to this without any problems but this could be to much for some fish. Not saying that is what it was for sure, but could be. I would throw out the hydrometer and get a refractometer ($50) because even if it works good today its only a matter of time before its not accurate anymore. I learned this lesson the hard way years ago.

I wouldn't worry about setting up a pod tank, its harder to keep up a large population than you might think, probably not worth the trouble. You can however feed your pods in your tank like I mentioned before. You can feed your tank phytoplankton too and that will help your pod population grow quickly, you can culture that easily if you want or you can just buy it.

Next time you might try to get a really small madarin, won't need as much food. I would wait at least 6 more months for a fish like that meanwhile an occasional feeding of your pods will help your tank get ready.