Mandarin goby getting enough food?

[TJ Merrells]

I have a 55g display with 27g sump.
About 10 months old
Refugium has a marine pure block and 2 boxes of spheres. I also have a large pile of rubble rock in my return pump chamber.

Livestock includes 2 clowns, blue chromis, yellow watchman goby, lemon damsel.

After my tank cycled before fish I added a bottle each of reef nutrition tisbe and apex pods. At about 6 months I added 2 more bottles of apex and tisbe pods.

A week ago a got my first mandarin goby, he's very small captive bred. And a couple days later and added 2 bottles of reef nutrition Tigger pods and been dosing live phyto into the display and sump on lights out every other day.

I see my mandarin cruising around the rock alot but don't really see him nipping.

Just want to make sure I have enough pods to support him as I've mostly dosed until recently tisbe and apex pods which are hard to see.

Any advice helps thx

 

[SlugSnorter]

Apex are more floaty, tisbe crawl around, tigers are the biggest of the three

I feel tigers or maybe even some Amphipods would be good

 

[TJ Merrells]

Apex are more floaty, tisbe crawl around, tigers are the biggest of the three

I feel tigers or maybe even some Amphipods would be good

Yes I dosed all 3 so there's alot of different diversity. Just hope there enough to sustain

 

[SlugSnorter]

Yes I dosed all 3 so there's alot of different diversity. Just hope there enough to sustain

pods will fight for resources, do you have a refugium?

 

[TJ Merrells]

Yes I have a 27g sump. Refugium contains a marine pure block and 2 boxes of marine pure spheres.

I also have a large pile of rubble rock in front of my return pump to act as a "pod hotel"

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

if its cruising and not nipping, it has nothing to nip. It should be eating a pod every few seconds.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Yes I have a 27g sump. Refugium contains a marine pure block and 2 boxes of marine pure spheres.

I also have a large pile of rubble rock in front of my return pump to act as a "pod hotel"

Macro-algae can really help

also pod hotels need to be harvested

 

[SlugSnorter]

I have a 55g display with 27g sump.
About 10 months old
Refugium has a marine pure block and 2 boxes of spheres. I also have a large pile of rubble rock in my return pump chamber.

Livestock includes 2 clowns, blue chromis, yellow watchman goby, lemon damsel.

After my tank cycled before fish I added a bottle each of reef nutrition tisbe and apex pods. At about 6 months I added 2 more bottles of apex and tisbe pods.

A week ago a got my first mandarin goby, he's very small captive bred. And a couple days later and added 2 bottles of reef nutrition Tigger pods and been dosing live phyto into the display and sump on lights out every other day.

I see my mandarin cruising around the rock alot but don't really see him nipping.

Just want to make sure I have enough pods to support him as I've mostly dosed until recently tisbe and apex pods which are hard to see.

Any advice helps thx

also dose phyto at least 5ml per 20 gallons and make sure its disseminating around the tank

If the pods don't have food where they live, they will die before they can mate, do to starvation or too many leaving their hiding places at once

 

[TJ Merrells]

also dose phyto at least 5ml per 20 gallons and make sure its disseminating around the tank

If the pods don't have food where they live, they will die before they can mate, do to starvation or too many leaving their hiding places at once

Yes I dose phyto every couple days

 

[SlugSnorter]

You should dose daily or maybe every other day or else they will leave their hiding spots

Yes I dose phyto every couple days

 

[Karen00]

I read daily dosing is needed or at least every other day for phyto. If your mandarin is captive bred it should also eat frozen. Do you know if it has been trained on frozen? If so you might want to feed that until you're sure you have pods and that it's eating them. What you don't want to happen is that the mandarin gets too thin because getting them to recover once they get to that point is difficult.

 

[eggplantparrot]

get a couple of plastic boxes from the dollar store and start culturing white worms.

my baby was emaciated when i got him (unfortunately he'd been at the store for a while as i got him on a sale).

it's been a few months and he's doubled in length.

culturing phyto and pods is also not difficult, just requires some time and a bit of room.

 

[mihaieu]

As an extension to this thread, how do you know a mandarin is starving?
In my case I got a Mandarin about a week ago from an LFS. Second day I noticed he is eating hikary mysis shrimps from the sand. From time to time he was nipping on the glass as well. I start spot feeding him (he is a male) at the same time with the other fish ( I make sure the other fish get their food on the opposite side of the tank) and he is eating about 10 mysis in the morning and about half of that 2 /3 more times during the day but not nipping anymore.
My tank is a 75 gallon with a hob protein skimmer and no sump. Recently I start growing chaeto algae in a phosban reactor. The tank is a mix of sps/ lps/ softies and has been up for about 5 years. Also have a 4 inch deep sand and about 80 pounds of rock. At night is crawling with amphipods.
The Mandarin is competing with 2 leopards and a 6 line wrasse all eating mysis as well.

Attached is a video of the mandarin. Is it possible to tell is he is starving?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

As an extension to this thread, how do you know a mandarin is starving?
In my case I got a Mandarin about a week ago from an LFS. Second day I noticed he is eating hikary mysis shrimps from the sand. From time to time he was nipping on the glass as well. I start spot feeding him (he is a male) at the same time with the other fish ( I make sure the other fish get their food on the opposite side of the tank) and he is eating about 10 mysis in the morning and about half of that 2 /3 more times during the day but not nipping anymore.
My tank is a 75 gallon with a hob protein skimmer and no sump. Recently I start growing chaeto algae in a phosban reactor. The tank is a mix of sps/ lps/ softies and has been up for about 5 years. Also have a 4 inch deep sand and about 80 pounds of rock. At night is crawling with amphipods.
The Mandarin is competing with 2 leopards and a 6 line wrasse all eating mysis as well.

Attached is a video of the mandarin. Is it possible to tell is he is starving?

yes, you can see the line across his body.

 

[eggplantparrot]

As an extension to this thread, how do you know a mandarin is starving?
In my case I got a Mandarin about a week ago from an LFS. Second day I noticed he is eating hikary mysis shrimps from the sand. From time to time he was nipping on the glass as well. I start spot feeding him (he is a male) at the same time with the other fish ( I make sure the other fish get their food on the opposite side of the tank) and he is eating about 10 mysis in the morning and about half of that 2 /3 more times during the day but not nipping anymore.
My tank is a 75 gallon with a hob protein skimmer and no sump. Recently I start growing chaeto algae in a phosban reactor. The tank is a mix of sps/ lps/ softies and has been up for about 5 years. Also have a 4 inch deep sand and about 80 pounds of rock. At night is crawling with amphipods.
The Mandarin is competing with 2 leopards and a 6 line wrasse all eating mysis as well.

Attached is a video of the mandarin. Is it possible to tell is he is starving?

if his stomach is concave, that'd be a good sign he's starving.

 

[mihaieu]

yes, you can see the line across his body.

Thank you for the answer. Yes, I think I can see that line more pronounced on the tail. I cannot see it behind the head though. I think there are enough pods as the leopards are picking at the rocks more often than the Mandarin. I’ll try to add some selcon to the mysis maybe will make it more nutritious.

 

[mihaieu]

if his stomach is concave, that'd be a good sign he's starving.

Thank you for the answer. I cannot see his stomach at all even when he swimming against the glass. Maybe because it is emaciated.

 

[Tchung23]

He looks pretty healthy. Here’s a pic of mine. I only feed once a day. I have a redsea 200xl with sump underneath.
Mine doesn’t look skinny from what I can tell.

 

[Saltyanimals]

Suggestions on phyto?

 

[SlugSnorter]

Suggestions on phyto?

I like phyto feast live