Can I have a green mandarin dragonet?

[weldrick208658]

I had an old 32 gallon that was around a year old and I recently upgraded to a 70 gallon moving the rocks and media over. I’m wondering if my tank is okay to have a dragonet because I know they feed on Copepods

 

[purpfish]

You will probably need to add phyto or pods regularly

 

[Thalasstronaut]

You mean size wise? That would probably be fine.

Have you seeded copepods? If you’ve moved a tank, I would personally aggressively seed again before adding the mandarin.

They annihilate pods, so trying to build a population with one already in the tank will be a lot harder than adding pods for a while and then the mandarin. I usually see 3 months of seeding as a recommended safe time, that’s what I did and I haven’t had any issues. I intend to top off a few times a year but I’m not at that point yet.

Even if you intend to get a captive bred or frozen eating specimen, having the copepod population hurts nothing. It’s a nice failsafe in case your mandarin stops accepting other foods.

 

[KrisReef]

What other fishes

You mean size wise? That would probably be fine.

Have you seeded copepods? If you’ve moved a tank, I would personally aggressively seed again before adding the mandarin.

They annihilate pods, so trying to build a population with one already in the tank will be a lot harder than adding pods for a while and then the mandarin. I usually see 3 months of seeding as a recommended safe time, that’s what I did and I haven’t had any issues. I intend to top off a few times a year but I’m not at that point yet.

^This, and what other fishes will be in the tank?

Mandarines are generally peaceful slow moving hunt and peck feeders. They do better when the can hunt without being bothered by more active fishes. They could work well with Seahorses and pipefishes that are also slow moving and prefer live (moving) prey.

 

[Faurek]

Depends, if you can find one at the LFS that already feeds on frozen go for it, otherwise you could try hatching baby brineshrimp but that won't be enough long term, and buying pods will last you minutes each time probably.

 

[bradreef]

I had a 75 and fattened up a Mando in there. I added a pod hotel behind some rock to give the pods a place to repopulate. I do grow pods so I needed well also. Ide buy a pods mix prior.