How do you quarantine a mandarin goby?

[TheNowMovement]

I was just thinking, quarantine tanks usually dont have refugiums attached to them to keep a population of copepods up for the mandarin to eat... from what i hear you arent supposed to keep live rock in the quarantine tank... How are you supposed to keep a mandarin goby in quarantine without a constant supply of copepods to eat?

This is a pretty popular fish from what i keep reading, so I know people have done it with success... I just wanna know the best way to go about this!

 

[Humblefish]

Most (but not all) mandarins will eat a frozen food called Nutramar Ova (natural prawn eggs). Unfortunately, there has been a disruption in the supply of it, making it almost impossible to find. Some mandarins will eat live brine shrimp or baby brine. Some of the larger ones will even eat live blackworms.

Another option is to add chaeto or LR from your DT with pods. This is only a good idea if you are 100% sure your DT is disease free, and do not return the cheato/LR back to the DT after the mandarins are done with it. Or you could buy "pods in a bottle" to feed the mandy, but that is an expensive option. But feeding live pods is only an option if you are just observing in QT or doing TT. Chemical treatment/hypo will kill the pods. You can use LR in QT - just not when you're medicating.

 

[Marshall O]

My current QT is a 40 long with plenty of live rock. Works great for finicky eaters. Note it's a QT and not a hospital tank :)

 

[basile]

Its the perfect time to train them to eat frozen and pellet food, no better time for them to recongnize the pellet as food. And they do , voila.