Could I put a mandarin in a 40 breeder with 60 lbs of live rock and about 10 lbs of live sand to see my aragonite with an in-tank refugium? Would the intank refugium make a difference?
For the curious, I had to start my tank over, so I'm rethinking the livestock.
Don't you think your cutting it close if your restarting your tank? If you had it running for at least 6 months and had penty of copes and amphipods. Then I might give it a shot but till it bug population is re-established I would wait a while but I would still try it. Just later. Don't forget your other fish will be eating them as well.
"Where to keep the Synchiropus splendidus?
If you are thinking about acquiring a mandarin the first thing that must be considered is the type of set-up or aquarium that they require for the best chance of a long and healthy life. Mandarins should only be kept in a well-established reef aquarium fully stocked with live rock and sand. Only an aquarium with plenty of live rock can support the biodiversity necessary to provide the continuous source of microfauna essential to this species well being. A well-matured reef aquarium that contains plenty of live rock and sand can harbor populations of amphipods, copepods, mysid shrimp and worms that are the staple of the mandarin's diet. Without a large sustainable population of live foods within the aquarium a mandarin will slowly starve to death.
In order to sustain a population of live foods within the aquarium a couple things are required. First, the aquarium must be large enough so that the mandarin will not quickly decimate the live food supply. I would consider a 50-gallon tank to be a minimum size to support one mandarin. Secondly the aquarium must be set-up for a long enough period that the micro-fauna population has become well established prior to the addition of a mandarin. An aquarium that has been set-up with live rock and sand for a year or more is probably a good choice. Thirdly, the competition for food must be kept a minimum. Mandarins don't compete well with faster moving fish for the available food. If the tank contains other species of fish, such as the six-line wrasse, that consumes the copepods and other live foods your mandarin may not get enough to eat.
Live Rocks and Sands
If you are still in the planning stages of putting together an aquarium that you intend to keep a mandarin in choose your live rock and sand from several sources. Using rock and sand from several different locations around the world should increase the biodiversity of life within your aquarium. It is best to use fairly large pieces of porous rock in shapes that are easy to stack together while leaving open spaces and gaps in between.
A deep sandbed with a variety of grain sizes will encourage the widest assortment of microfauna to grow in and on the sand. Amphipods seem to reproduce better in coarse sand and coral rubble while a variety of worms may flourish in finer sands. After the microfauna population has had enough time to become well established a mandarin can be introduced. The assortment of foods growing within the aquarium will be the main source of food to sustain these fish.
If you have a friend in the hobby with a healthy tank ask for sample of their sand. This can be a good way to import a starter of microfauna and microflora into your aquarium. On the down side, if your friend's tank has an undesirable parasite or worm you could import this also.
Refugiums
A refugium can be a great source of live foods for mandarins and other fish. Algae turf scrubbers, sumps and even separate aquariums can be used to grow many of the organisms that mandarins will happily consume. I have some extra live rock with a little sand in my sump to encourage the proliferation of these foods. You can purchase starter populations of several live foods to place in your refugium. If you live near the beach you can collect some types of copepods and amphipods yourself. You can collect copepods with a 90-to-130-micron mesh screen or sieve. Even specimens collected from cold water locations often reproduce in a separate container or refugium."
My short answer would be no. 60 lbs of LR is not enough to sustain the mandarin. I have a 125 w/ 220+lbs of Live rock and I still rotate a couple of pounds of LR from the rugium to the main tank just to make sure it always has something in the main tank. In a 40 w/ 60 lbs of LR the mandarin will decimate your pod population. Remember these guys look for food ALL DAY long. They only stop when the lights got out!
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How many licks DOES it take to get to the center of a bubble algae?!?!
IME, w/ a scooter blenny, w/ 64 lbs. of LR, thinking I had enough pods to support it.... I was wrong.. I regret ever getting it, because it basically starved to death, and I didn't know it. I thought I had enough pods to be able to support it, but he ate constantly, and wiped out the entire population in 2 months..
Needless to say, the only blenny I will keep now, w/o being able to keep a good pod population, would be a lawnmower blenny.. With all the algae I have, I know he won't EVER starve.........
GREAT info Robert!!! GW, I agree with what you posted! I think the tank needs to be more mature with much more LR than what you have in your tank. I would not do it, I think it would just starve itself in a matter of a short time.
Thanks ghostwriter and cokeman69 for your straight answers.
Of course, I would never consider putting the mandarin in anytime soon...I was just trying to see if it was possible while I plan my stocking list. I would hate to have started buying more fish, only to decide next year I want the mandarin, but it wouldn't work with the current occupants.
Anyway, it looks like no mandarin for this aquarium, which is cool....more room for wrasses!
Originally posted by msn711 Ok, give me a straight answer:
Could I put a mandarin in a 40 breeder with 60 lbs of live rock and about 10 lbs of live sand to see my aragonite with an in-tank refugium? Would the intank refugium make a difference?
Without too much BS....Only if you get an ongoing pod breeding tank with no competing predator and that takes at least a year of established LR. Ref wont matter much either unless more LR is there.
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Hey reiple, you mean like a 10g tank just for breeding pods and rotating live rock from the 10 to the 40? Just curious...may keep this in mind if I can ever get over my obsession with wrasses. Too bad I can't have a 300g tank to accomodate both.
I have a question about the Green Mandarin?
) a six-line wrasse in a heartbeat!
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