Mandarin-ready?

[dugthefish]

Ok, I have a gift certificate from LA I gotta use by tomorrow. Most of the fish on my list are unavailable (go figure), and I gotta fill the order out.

5 month old 125 community reef, 15 gal fuge. I've dosed pods twice, feed live phyto regularly, and have thousands of pods on my rock, glass and water column in the evening. To the point they're starting to annoy me lol.

I think there's plenty of live food in there now, but I don't really wanna have to drop in fresh pods every month. Is there a point where the population will be self-sustaining in a system this size with 1 predator?

 

[Rjukan]

How much rock do you have?

 

[dugthefish]

How much rock do you have?

Idk, 130ish maybe

 

[Rjukan]

Rock looks good, mature for only 5mo. With that size tank, that much rock, and a good size fuge I'm going to say you're good for a mandarin. I'm no expert, but I had a real fat one living in a 75g that had a ton of rock and a large sump/fuge.

 

[Crazyfishguy]

I would decently agree. I think you would be able to support one with no issues if you have that many pods swimming around to the point they are annoying you lol.

 

[ccombs]

I have spent a lot of time researching mandarins and have seen way too many people add them too early.

HOWEVER. With the amount of rock you have, the fuge, dosing pods, seeing pods, etc. I would say go ahead with caution.

Keep an eye on the pod population and be ready to keep dosing until you get to about a year or so.

 

[Mical]

Make sure you have chaeto in sump for pods to multiply and I found run without filter sock and pod population explodes in chaeto/sump.

 

[Hermie]

I have spent a lot of time researching mandarins and have seen way too many people add them too early.

HOWEVER. With the amount of rock you have, the fuge, dosing pods, seeing pods, etc. I would say go ahead with caution.

Keep an eye on the pod population and be ready to keep dosing until you get to about a year or so.

What's crazy about pods is I thought I had a ton in my QT tank before I put any corals in there, but afterwards they are virtually decimated, I definitely see some but way fewer and that was just from a 3 head Candy cane coral

 

[Mical]

What's crazy about pods is I thought I had a ton in my QT tank before I put any corals in there, but afterwards they are virtually decimated, I definitely see some but way fewer and that was just from a 3 head Candy cane coral

Other fish will pick at the pod population especially wrasses IMO. My six line destroyed the bristleworm population and then went after pods as a treat.

 

[dugthefish]

Make sure you have chaeto in sump for pods to multiply and I found run without filter sock and pod population explodes in chaeto/sump.

My first attempt at chaeto failed, the ball just kind of slowly fell apart. I had been fighting dinos for several weeks, so I'm still dosing to keep nutrients up. Will try again once levels start to stabilize.

 

[Mical]

My first attempt at chaeto failed, the ball just kind of slowly fell apart. I had been fighting dinos for several weeks, so I'm still dosing to keep nutrients up. Will try again once levels start to stabilize.

Mine did the same initially but I got a ball from a guy on ebay and it's bloomed and I split it between two tanks and even put it in my overflows. I found that Microbacter7 helped the growth.

 

[dugthefish]

Got a lot of microfauna going on, I think