Is my Dragonet eating?

sprungson · Jun 17, 2019

Hi All,

I'll admit that i created a Refugium to breed copepods the same time I bought my Mandrin, but i'm extremely committed to the reefing husbandry!

It's been 48 hours and the Mandarin is very actively swimming around and perching around through rocks. But, I actually have never seen him eating.

Here's the timeline of things i did over the weekend:

Saturday 6/15
1. Added a Mandarin Dragonet on Saturday 6/15
2. Created refugium in sump (Baseball size chaeto, 8x8x4" Marine Pure block, 3.8Oz of Bio Spira into block, w/ return pump and skimmer off). I did add an H80 Kessil light and powerhead in refugium as well
3. During lights out, added one 16 oz bag of tisbe pods to tank, and two bags of tisbe pods to refugium (with return pump, skimmer, and refugium power head off for an hour)
Sunday 6/16
1. Did a ~20% water change (~10G)
2. At lights out added another 16 oz bag of copeopds to tank, and 3 16oz bag of copepods to refugium (same process as above)

Can anybody tell by the pictures whether or not he is eating or starving?

Brett S · Jun 17, 2019

sprungson said:
I'll admit that i created a Refugium to breed copepods the same time I bought my Mandrin, but i'm extremely committed to the reefing husbandry!

These two phrases are kind of mutually exclusive. If you were really committed to reefing husbandry then you would do it right and set up the fuge and give the pods population time to establish itself before adding the mandarin.

But that said, it’s really not possible to tell from pictures like that, especially if it’s only been in the tank for a short time. You want to watch it’s stomach and if it seems to be shrinking and getting smaller then that’s a very bad sign and it will likely starve to death. If it’s not shrinking or if it’s even getting fatter then that’s a good sign that it’s doing well. But these changes will likely happen over several weeks, not just a few days.

sprungson · Jun 17, 2019

Brett S said:
These two phrases are kind of mutually exclusive. If you were really committed to reefing husbandry then you would do it right and set up the fuge and give the pods population time to establish itself before adding the mandarin.

But that said, it’s really not possible to tell from pictures like that, especially if it’s only been in the tank for a short time. You want to watch it’s stomach and if it seems to be shrinking and getting smaller then that’s a very bad sign and it will likely starve to death. If it’s not shrinking or if it’s even getting fatter then that’s a good sign that it’s doing well. But these changes will likely happen over several weeks, not just a few days.

Thank you. I appreciate your response. I got better pictures and he's super active today. I even saw him took a bite out of mysis shrimp.