Starlight2017
New Member
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to post my feeding station idea in case anyone else was trying to set up a feeding station for their mandarin dragonet. On one of the threads here on R2R, I saw a post on creating a feeding station using a plastic container and lid, pantyhose, and hard airline tubing. Before beginning to hunt around for all of these items around town, I searched my aquarium supplies to see what I had in storage. I found a plastic specimen cup (like the kind Quest Laboratories or LabCor give you for a urine test) given to me by a local fish store when I purchased a frag a few months ago, some glass beads from my previous freshwater aquarium, and a spare fish net. Since I kind of had the supplies, I decided to run an experiment. I unscrewed the plastic cap off of the specimen cup and used a flat edge razor blade to cut along the lid design (super easy because it was like a track for the razor! But, do take a moment to smith it out when you are done so it doesn’t rip your net when you twist the lid on). I then placed the specimen cup itself under the net and tightened the cap over it. I used a scissor to trim off the rest of the net (leaving some excess). I added some glass beads to weigh the specimen cup slightly and then filled it with some live tigger copepods. After submerging the unit into the rear corner of the aquarium facing the wall so the fish don’t gather there to have snacks) some live tigger copepods were escaping thru the net (the small amounts escaping kept my fish in the tank distracted). In a few moments the mandarin dragonet swam over to check it out, left, and then circled back and had himself a feast! He has been non-stop eating!! Aside from the fact that you need to dip your arm into the tank to submerge it and take it out later for refill, this is a great way to fatten up a skinny mandarin or provide a sure way to know you have a good supply of copepods in your tank since after you pour in a bottle, they quickly hide in the live rocks and it is too hard to tell!! My next experience my with this specimen jar will be to maybe introduce frozen foods to the specimen jar! By the way, when I had my mandarin in quarantine and was adding an insane amount of copepods daily to keep it eating. After seeing how I was going thru a bottle in two days, I decided to look online and see if any other live food could be added to help feed him. Someone posted live brine shrimp. I got the normal sized ones and he wouldn’t eat them. However, someone else posted they had luck with Nano Brine, so I have it a shot and ordered some from algae barn.com. Just after adding the copepods, I added live nano shrimp (from algaebarn.com) in the tank with the tigger pods and the mandarin didn’t notice they were different (just that they were moving) and ate them up! Just another idea to keep them fat!
Just wanted to post my feeding station idea in case anyone else was trying to set up a feeding station for their mandarin dragonet. On one of the threads here on R2R, I saw a post on creating a feeding station using a plastic container and lid, pantyhose, and hard airline tubing. Before beginning to hunt around for all of these items around town, I searched my aquarium supplies to see what I had in storage. I found a plastic specimen cup (like the kind Quest Laboratories or LabCor give you for a urine test) given to me by a local fish store when I purchased a frag a few months ago, some glass beads from my previous freshwater aquarium, and a spare fish net. Since I kind of had the supplies, I decided to run an experiment. I unscrewed the plastic cap off of the specimen cup and used a flat edge razor blade to cut along the lid design (super easy because it was like a track for the razor! But, do take a moment to smith it out when you are done so it doesn’t rip your net when you twist the lid on). I then placed the specimen cup itself under the net and tightened the cap over it. I used a scissor to trim off the rest of the net (leaving some excess). I added some glass beads to weigh the specimen cup slightly and then filled it with some live tigger copepods. After submerging the unit into the rear corner of the aquarium facing the wall so the fish don’t gather there to have snacks) some live tigger copepods were escaping thru the net (the small amounts escaping kept my fish in the tank distracted). In a few moments the mandarin dragonet swam over to check it out, left, and then circled back and had himself a feast! He has been non-stop eating!! Aside from the fact that you need to dip your arm into the tank to submerge it and take it out later for refill, this is a great way to fatten up a skinny mandarin or provide a sure way to know you have a good supply of copepods in your tank since after you pour in a bottle, they quickly hide in the live rocks and it is too hard to tell!! My next experience my with this specimen jar will be to maybe introduce frozen foods to the specimen jar! By the way, when I had my mandarin in quarantine and was adding an insane amount of copepods daily to keep it eating. After seeing how I was going thru a bottle in two days, I decided to look online and see if any other live food could be added to help feed him. Someone posted live brine shrimp. I got the normal sized ones and he wouldn’t eat them. However, someone else posted they had luck with Nano Brine, so I have it a shot and ordered some from algae barn.com. Just after adding the copepods, I added live nano shrimp (from algaebarn.com) in the tank with the tigger pods and the mandarin didn’t notice they were different (just that they were moving) and ate them up! Just another idea to keep them fat!
