Copepods and Mandarins

[Darth Polymnus]

I've had my 90 gallon tank set up for about a year and a half. I have lil copepod looking bugs in my tank and fuge. I keep reading that tisbe copepods are better for mandarins. Does it matter what kind of copepods you have?

 

[DSP]

Your tank should have plenty of pods for a Mandarin then, The tiny white dots you see in your glass are copepods and mandarins love those, The bigger amphipods you see running around most mandarins don't care for those ones because there to big, And yes the Tisby pods are what you want for the Mandarin if you wanna add more to the tank.

 

[KoleTang]

They'll eat anything 'pod like. copepods, amphipods, baby brine shrimp, small flatworms, etc.

 

[Squishie89]

The tiny white dots you see in your glass are copepods and mandarins love those, The bigger amphipods you see running around most mandarins don't care for those ones because there to big, And yes the Tisbe pods are what you want for the Mandarin if you wanna add more to the tank.

Yup. This!

 

[NanaReefer]

They'll eat anything 'pod like. copepods, amphipods, baby brine shrimp, small flatworms, etc.

This is so not true for all Mandarins. Unlike most fish Mandarins do not have the usual stomach. Thus allowing the Amphipod to crawl its way back out of the digestive track. They are also very aggressive and can bite. Something Mandarins do not like.

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Subjective answers you will get I sense - Yoda.

For my two Mandarins, I had plenty of pods but they soon finish those off quickly. I added the two mandarins a few months a part. So this has been my experience.

After they were dominating my pods, I bought 1000 buy - 1000 free from Reefs2Go. My mandarins learned to eat the pods off the sponge. I then added more pods to my refugium and when it was time to eat I would sprinkle some Phytoplankton on the sponge to have the pods jump on it. I would then transfer the sponge to my tank where the mandarins would eat off of.

After a few weeks, I was quickly running out of amphipods (larger ones). My mandarins love these!

So I created small fish hotels out of mini-pepsi bottles and cut them open with a hole on top where my mandarins could go in. This is where I trained them to eat frozen Brine. Now they eat from my baster but I have to kill the fans as they are slow eaters.

I am also currently breeding pods in my garage but that is a slow process. For now, I am happy with frozen brine.