So mandarins, their pod consumption is no joke...

[living_tribunal]

Im seeding my tank right now to get a mandarin so this was very helpful, im going to build i guess a sump/refugium with copepod cultivation even more in mind. My mandarin will come from a place where its already taught to eat prepared foods but having a good stock of copepods is im sure still important.

Where is that from?

 

[living_tribunal]

That's cool and I'm gonna make something like that when I get a mandarin. First I need my cube and refugium to grow lots of pods. For some reason they just aren't taking like my other tanks.

What kind of pods did you first add?

 

[SMSREEF]

What kind of pods did you first add?

Tigger and tisbe. They are multiplying in my macro quarantine tank just not in display tank.

 

[living_tribunal]

Tigger and tisbe. They are multiplying in my macro quarantine tank just not in display tank.

Tiggers won’t ever flourish in a tank. They are more so one time food. This is because they are free swimmers and large. Fish pick them off real quick.

Tisbes however will eventually flourish. Just keep in mind they are small and are hard to see. You most likely have thousands on your sand and in your rocks but just can’t see them.

 

[DSEKULA]

Here's mine, it's just a little plastic bowl with nylon stretched over the cut out area, ridgid tubing to the water surface. I use a 20 cc syringe to get the brine shrimp down to the feeding area. Pods are just in the aquarium, but those were seeded into the red pipe organ coral skeleton and have multiplied by huge amounts. I do add small amounts of phyto to the aquarium every now and then.

Nice design but I'd definitely be hiding it a bit. I know not everyone mixes their own rocks but why not let a coral, sponge, or macro grow on it?

 

[NashobaTek]

Nice design but I'd definitely be hiding it a bit. I know not everyone mixes their own rocks but why not let a coral, sponge, or macro grow on it?

It's only been back in the aquarium for a few days, originally it was behind the coral skeleton and they didn't want to use it. I'll let stuff grow on it now, they seem to be using it.

 

[DHill6]

They do enjoy it, I have a feeling some Mandarins do scavenge in the wild a little bit (just from watching them) it's just not as normal or their first preference for eating but they all seem to go nuts for prepared food once you get them to realize it's food. They will also come to recognize you as the feeder. Mine comes right to the feeding spot (feeder) and dances for food similar to a mateing dance flairing and diving up and down.

Which type of feeder?

 

[Ulm_nano_diybudgetreef]

Excellent post. Only thing missing is a pic of the little guy going to town on those pods!

Video pls... lol

 

[Oz_Puffy]

So this is exactly what I went through that led to a very important discovery.

I was also getting tired of culturing phyto. With the pandemic, it was very difficult to keep it sterilized all the time as there was no alcohol anywhere.

I came across a post from someone who has been culturing copepods en mass for a decade and something struck my eye.

The person didn't feed their tisbe pods phyto. In fact they had phyto as a secondary food source behind detritus and fish flakes as the primary food.

My tisbe culture was weak when only using phyto so I decided to give it a shot. I tried a hand full of different foods and the winner was reef roids. I believe this is because reef roids is just ground up rotifers (which all pods go crazy for).

Currently for my tisbe culture, I dump in maybe 1 small cap of phytofeast by @reefnutrition (normal, not live), and 1/8th teaspoon of reef roids (twice for 1 harvest). My weekly harvests are 10x what they were with phyto.

For apocyclops genus copepods, they prefer detritus in some way shape or form. These are your tisbe & apex varieties, the ones that live on surfaces (rocks, glass, sand, etc).

For tiggers, you will have to feed phyto, they require it.

Now this could be a game changer! I had been doing some research on culturing pods for the very purpose of mandarins, but the culturing of the phyto to feed the pods and having multiple cultures running and trying to keep it all cool (I run a chiller year round and don’t own an aquarium heater) was a bit off putting. The possibility of just a culture of pods and feeding them other foods definitely makes it a more attractive proposition

 

[living_tribunal]

Now this could be a game changer! I had been doing some research on culturing pods for the very purpose of mandarins, but the culturing of the phyto to feed the pods and having multiple cultures running and trying to keep it all cool (I run a chiller year round and don’t own an aquarium heater) was a bit off putting. The possibility of just a culture of pods and feeding them other foods definitely makes it a more attractive proposition

I wouldn't worry about the cooler, they'll be fine at room temperature.

For most every pod genus, you don't have to be concerned about feeding live phyto. Phytofeast will work just fine but if you have something like tiggers that are large and consume a ton of phyto, it can get pricey. For tisbes and apex, feeding two caps of phytofeast per harvest will work fine.

 

[living_tribunal]

Video pls... lol

See first page.

 

[living_tribunal]

Game changer - thank you so much, definitely going to try this with my tisbes, was about to throw in the towel on pods and a mandarin entirely!

Let us know how this works out, curious to see if we can confirm it with others.

 

[Oz_Puffy]

I wouldn't worry about the cooler, they'll be fine at room temperature.

For most every pod genus, you don't have to be concerned about feeding live phyto. Phytofeast will work just fine but if you have something like tiggers that are large and consume a ton of phyto, it can get pricey. For tisbes and apex, feeding two caps of phytofeast per harvest will work fine.

Haha well now that depends on the room temperature! Haha have you ever smelt coral soup when you cook all of your corals with no chiller? Unfortunately I have
No, I was thinking about setting up the cultures in my shed, so I will need to do something I think. Temp ranges from about 22-33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit) in the “winter”, and warmer during the summer, so they will likely cook. I can see how they go though.

Cool, I’ll give it a go. I used to have a decent population in my old tanks, just eating detritus and living in the chaeto in the sump and tanks, but the new tank doesn’t have chaeto and a lot more things to eat them.

 

[itgoeson]

Let us know how this works out, curious to see if we can confirm it with others.

Funny enough I think I may have finally solved my phyto problems. I finally grew up and got an RODI system and since I’ve been making my own water, my phyto has come out perfect. I think the LFS water I was buying was contaminated (I was boiling it to control for that but I think I just wasn’t able to get totally rid of whatever it was). I do want some phyto to dose the tank with if I can get it working so am very excited about that!

However I haven’t had a ton of pods growing in my culture so from this thread I started adding a pinch of CoralMax (similar to ReefRoids) along with the phyto this week to try to get a higher pod density.

 

[CherBear811]

First, great post! Wish more folks had this perspective when trying to keep these guys. Another alternative is to get the captive bred ones (algae barn or pod your reef sell them), which are raised on frozen.

Regarding the pods per bottle.... wish I knew how to tag them here ( @revhtree can you help me out? ), but I've seen videos from the guys at Pod Your Reef https://www.podyourreef.com/. They showed how they do it... Take a sample drop from a batch, then use a microscope to count how many pods are in it, then multiply that times the volume of the drop in the bag/bottle; once they get the density they want to hit 1000 per bag, etc, the batch is ready. More or less.... I may not have that exactly on point, but that's the gist. It may have been the guy at Algae Barn, but pretty sure it was the PYR guy.

 

[NashobaTek]

PYR is the only place I will buy pods online. They're fast and I have not received a bad bottle yet. Plus they have discounts for all military and first responders.

 

[pbenjbear2]

Tiggers won’t ever flourish in a tank. They are more so one time food. This is because they are free swimmers and large. Fish pick them off real quick.

Tisbes however will eventually flourish. Just keep in mind they are small and are hard to see. You most likely have thousands on your sand and in your rocks but just can’t see them.

I am just starting to set up to cultivate pods for my 2 mandarins. We found plans and printed a pod lodge and stocked up on some phyto additive - What is your recommendation for where to get your Tisbes? And how much to start in a 10 gal set-up?

 

[NashobaTek]

I am just starting to set up to cultivate pods for my 2 mandarins. We found plans and printed a pod lodge and stocked up on some phyto additive - What is your recommendation for where to get your Tisbes? And how much to start in a 10 gal set-up?

Podyourreef has them and the bottles are full and shipped fast
They can also advise you on the amount you will need.

 

[Mike9976]

About 6-7 months ago, I decided I would start preparing for a mandarin. I knew they consumed an exorbitant amount of pods, I guess I just didn't know how much.

I set up two external pod cultures, 1 for tisbe and 1 for tigger and have kept them running for the last 6 months, trying to beef up the population in my tank as much as possible. My weekly pod harvests amount to ~20,000 total, 10,000 per culture. I have several heavy pod consuming fish so increasing this output has been my primary focus.

Last week, I finally decided to pull the trigger and got my baby mandarin.

I'm writing this post to put things into perspective, namely to those who 'plan on teaching a mandarin how to eat frozen foods'. To say these guys consume a lot of pods is an understatement, these guys consume more pods than you can fathom. My mandarin is only .75", yesterday was only his first day in my tank, I watched him for a couple of hours and he consumes about 5 pods every minute on a conservative basis. That amounts to 300 pods per hour, 3,600 pods per day with a 12 hour photoperiod. I can only imagine how much this consumption rate will ramp up as he grows. I am starting to think even 2 external cultures with a 15 gallon fuge in my sump is not enough.

There is nothing wrong with trying to teach your mandarin to eat frozen, there is a good chance over time he will learn to love frozen cyclops. That shouldn't be your first approach however. Have a tank stocked to the brim with pods and a plan to continually add them/keep your population as high as possible and let the mandarin learn to eat frozen over time.

Hey bud, what's your pod setup? I have 2 5g and am thinking of doing something but need a baseline so to say

 

[living_tribunal]

I forgot to type up how I culture, I'll get something prepared tonight.