Copepods
 

My significant other picked up a couple of nice surprises on the way from home work yesterday. She picked up a Green Mandarin Goby and a Tang (she forgot the name, but think it is a Powder Brown, or Naso).

About the Mandarin, from what I have read he will prefer copepods. Do they grow naturally in a sump? If not, where can I purchase them and how does one propagate them? Are they easily visible to the naked eye?

Generally they grow in macro algae and live rock. They need a place to hide or the mandarin will whipe them out.

Most people use a refugium to house them in. Either remotely from the sump or in a section of the sump.

Yes you can see some of them with the naked eye, they can get pretty big.

Most people will tell you that you should not purchase a mandarin until your tank is atleast one year old and have a substantial pod population. Otherwise it will starve to death.

I agree and am currently waiting to get mine, 6 months to go.

Could you please post your current tank specs? That will help us determine if these fish were a good purchase.

they also require a good big tank so there is enough area for the pods to sustain their population with such a predator. tank specs and livestock would help greatly. your other livestock are probably pod predators too so you have to take that into account.

I was also a little concerned about the age of our tank. It has been up and running for about 7 months now but things have been going very well.

Specs are as follows:

46 gallon display
Approximately 30 gallons in the sump
Approximately 50 lbs LR
PH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: 0
Ca: 425
SG: 1.026
Lighting: 6 x 36" - T5
Water: RO/DI

Tank Mates:

2 small Clowns
1 Fire Goby
1 small yellow Tang
3 Green Chromis
2 Brown Chromis
1 Dragon Goby
1 Royal Gramma
Lots of softies, couple of sps...etc
Assorted snails, crabs, etc.

Overstocked??

Your tank really should be older. It's hard to say what size population you have now. Without giving them a place to hide and reproduce the mandarin will whipe them out pretty fast.

If you can't take it back or don't want to I would move some live rock into your sump asap and plan to build a refuge or a section for one in your sump as soon as possible.

Sounds like a plan. I will get to work on the refugium tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice.

FYI your tank is to small for one tang never mind two, even if they are small now they will grow bigger. I hope you know you will need to upgrade your tank size to at least a 90g (bigger would be better) if you plan on keeping the tangs.

Some mandrains will eat mysis and if your real lucky pellets too. If you can get yours to eat mysis or pellets (mine does) then your golden, if not a sump with a refugium will help.

That's the plan! My sump is sized for a much larger tank and if the tangs grow too large before I can set up a larger tank, I will be posting here to make a trade. :wink:

imo a 46 is too small to sustain a pod population big enough for a mandarin and all the other fish in there that hunt pods... and most of them do. I would just return the mandarin.

We have an established (2yrs) 130g when we got a MG he was large and healthy. He did not survive, made it about 3 months :sad:. Even if you set up a refugium and get copepods established it is still tricky to get the food to the MG. Good Luck, I hope yours makes it!

sand seems to help with copepod populations I've seen. Bare bottom tanks don't seem to have as many copepods as most sand bottomed tanks, I've observed.

Guess that would explain why he spends a lot of time pecking at the sand bed in my tank.