Mandarin

[fancy_fish101]

Has anyone ever cultured pods to keep a mandarin in a small tank? I’m wondering how hard it is.

 

[Alexreefer]

I wouldn't under a 45 gal. Keeping the pod population up with small tanks is hard. It's possible to train the mandarins to eat frozen or pellets but it is not guaranteed.

 

[c0kefree]

I can’t say about cultivating pods.

Just anecdotal: i have mine in a redsea reefer nano eating tdo pellets, nls flake food and baby brine shrimp.
I was super concerned at first with it ostensibly eating pellets, so i pre loaded the aquarium with a care package from algeabarn. But it was MORE than accepting of tdo pellets.

i got mine as a baby from Biota.

 

[Kasrift]

Has anyone ever cultured pods to keep a mandarin in a small tank? I’m wondering how hard it is.

Not too difficult, but just another maintenance step. I do both copepod culturing and baby brine shrimp, but honestly don't know that I have to. I do live baby brine for coral feeling too though. As others said, if you get a Biota bred one you have a higher chance of it eating pellets and prepared food and that would be the better route to go if you don't want the extra maintenance or if you are concerned with meeting their dietary needs. Also cheaper in the long run, buying a 75$ fish vs 25$ but not needing to buy a culture starter for 20$, a culture vessel and air pump for another 40$, plus a food source for the culture, plus time, then the higher up front cost is worth it.