As in title, would like to add a Mandarin Dragonet to my tank in the relative future, and it's a relatively fresh one at about a month old (the tank).
Tank is dry rock/live sand combo, so it seems relatively sterile of bio-diversity and in the UK, or at least down in Cornwall, it's nigh impossible to get live rock to seed things like that.
Current livestock is 2 1" long Bangai Cardinals and 2 Skunk Cleaner shrimps.
We currently have a tig californicus pod culture on the go to grow copepods to seed the tank, though unaware of how long to let the culture grow before taking out to add to tank.
The LFS nearby claims that they only sell Mandarins that are eating frozen foods, which the Cardinals are currently on already, but I think that having a tank seeded with copepods will provide much better chances for them to survive.
Curious to hear some opinions or methodology for bringing a just-cycled system to being Mandarin-ready, or just generally increasing bio-diversity to help support it I guess.
Any possible problems with the above plans, or suggested timeframes for when things are right etc.
The tank has only live-rock+flow for filtration at the moment, image shows all equipment. So no sump or refugium etc.
Tank is dry rock/live sand combo, so it seems relatively sterile of bio-diversity and in the UK, or at least down in Cornwall, it's nigh impossible to get live rock to seed things like that.
Current livestock is 2 1" long Bangai Cardinals and 2 Skunk Cleaner shrimps.
We currently have a tig californicus pod culture on the go to grow copepods to seed the tank, though unaware of how long to let the culture grow before taking out to add to tank.
The LFS nearby claims that they only sell Mandarins that are eating frozen foods, which the Cardinals are currently on already, but I think that having a tank seeded with copepods will provide much better chances for them to survive.
Curious to hear some opinions or methodology for bringing a just-cycled system to being Mandarin-ready, or just generally increasing bio-diversity to help support it I guess.
Any possible problems with the above plans, or suggested timeframes for when things are right etc.
The tank has only live-rock+flow for filtration at the moment, image shows all equipment. So no sump or refugium etc.