Thin Mandarin...need pods!

[loans_n_fishes]

I think I may have had a pod die out for some reason. My mandarin looks thinner than I would like and I don't see many pods around. It's a 75 gallon with over 140 pounds of live rock. It has kept him fat and happy for 9 months or so, but now he is rather thin.

Does anyone have some pods I can supplement with? I am thinking of sticking some algae and or rubble down in my bak pak skimmer for a mini fuge. What do you think?

[Alamo]

you deff need a fuge if you have a mandarin imo, i have 1 in my 125 reef , hes been fat and happy going on 2 years now... you might try melevs mandarin diner, heres a link for it, till you get your fuge up and running and pods are plentiful.
http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

[loans_n_fishes]

I'll try that. I have a suspicion that he has eaten frozen cyclopeez in the past, but can't confirm it.

The only problem is, most of my fish can fit in a jar and my female clark clown is selfish with food.

However, I do think I will try it. Do you think frozen will work better than pellet, or are they about the same?

[alton]

Keeping the frozen in the jar may be the trick. The pellets seem to fit the jar feeder trick better when I tried it. You will probably have to set it on some rocks to keep the crabs from having a feast, that was my problem with it.

[GaryP]

Your other option is to try ordering a pod culture from IPSF or Florida Aqua Farms. However, as was mentioned earlier, its difficult to keep enough pods going in a tank your size without a fuge to provide a sheltered breeding ground.

I normally would not recommend getting a mandarin for a tank that does not have a mature fuge. I let my fuge matue for over a year before I added a mandarin. Since I have added one, I have noticed a huge drop in the amphipods that used to be everywhere in my tank. I would retrieve at least 25 from the sock filter every time I changed it. Now I only get 4-5.

[GaryP]

I just got another PM on this same topic so I thought I would add some links to the suppliers I mentioned above.

http://www.ipsf.com/#anchor45957
https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/agora.cgi

[Alamo]

I have used the pellet method with the diner and it seemed to work well, i used an olive jar for mine... you will get the odd other critter in there from time to time, but as long as the hungry fish gets some food what the hey :)

[loans_n_fishes]

Well, I made the feeding station out of a jelly jar. It has a smaller opening and is about as long as my fox face. How do I know, you ask?
Well, my piggy of a foxface managed to squeeze his way in, but couldn't back out! :lol I wound up having to lift the jar out of the water and let gravity do its work. :D The mandarin didn't seem very interested in the feeding station. However, when I dropped in a cube of brine, he wound up eating a couple of pieces. I will get some more frozen mysis tomorrow. His behavior seems fine...still grazing among the rocks and such...just looks pretty thin. If he eats the frozen, should I stick him in my 10 gallon for a while to fatten him up?

If he does wind up eating frozen fine, I will probably move him to my soon to be seahorse tank. There should be less competition from fast moving fish.

[Alamo]

lol thats why I used the thin olive jar :)