How do I know if my mandarin goby still has copepods to eat?

[kingkapoor]

I have a 55 g and I put in like 9,000 copepods about a week ago. How do I know if there are still copepods left.

 

[Tumey]

During the lights out period you should be able to explore your reef with a flashlight and notice them scavenging around the rocks & substrate.

Tumey

 

[Paul B]

You will see him eat one every few seconds. If you see him staring at the substrate but not picking up anything, there are no pods. Buying pods won't work. You need a tank mature enough to grow them on their own. 9,000 pods would be a weekend snack for a mandarin.
Good luck

 

[norfolkgarden]

75 gallon tank is usually the recommended minimum size tank for a sustainable population of pods for 1 small mandarin.

But you can cheat!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tigger-tisbe-pods.339906/

Excellent thread on growing pods in 2 separate small tanks (in case 1 tank crashes).
This way that $30 fish won't cost you $500 a year in food.

 

[Jesterrace]

As mentioned adding pods after adding a mandarin rarely pans out well. You might be able to keep things going if you culture pods in a separate tank but you are going to be a slave to feeding it and keeping it alive. Tisbe pods are one of the fastest reproducing pods so that would be what I would recommend.