Where do you buy pods?

[Tim Marvin]

Wow Henry! I hope you live on the bottom floor. Sounds cool.

[Inno]

Normally I do not recommend mandarins except to those very dedicated and having very mature aquariums. Fuge's are a plus; however, it is essential that the pod variety is often re-established in a fuge and main tank. Mandarins can decimate a pod population within a month or two, if even that. Most dedicated mandarin keepers provide tanks of 125g+ because of the amount of forage space with plenty of LR. There are always going to be people who have success in feeding Mandarins something other than their natural food source; however, they are in the minority. Majority of Mandarins perish within a months time. There is a person from ReefCentral who has a couple mandarins and has weened them onto other foods so you might want to do a search and see if you can partake in some of her methods.

[Moonrs]

I've had my mandarin in my tank for about 5 months time, and he looks very healthy. My tank is only 30 gallons, so I"m nost sure why he has survived this long, without my having a separate source of pods. I do have lots of LR, so maybe that helps. Maybe he's nipping at the food I feed the rest of the fish... I usually feed the fish flake food called Brine shrimp plus, from Ocean Nutrition, once a day. Every two or three days, I'll feed them Sally's frozen brine shrimp, instead of the flakes.

[Henry]

Yeah Tim, I'm on the first floor. They tried to put me on the third floor and I just laughed and said I didn't think my neighbors below would be very happy having a tank crash through their apt.

[saltcreepette]

i have a small dragonet (same family as mandarins) that eats formula one frozen (its red and gelatinous) and I deliver it to the floor of the aquarium via airline tubing. its a stroke of luck that he likes this stuff as most dragonets wont recognize dead food as edible. mine has been with me for six months and is doing great.

i ordered from ipsf some amphipods and have them multiplying in a seperate 10g tank and intend on setting up a gravity fed refugium to my main tank, for the record.

ive also heard of people making a little rubble pile in their main tank that the pods can take refuge in to breed so the fish cant get to them.

[Moonrs]

If you have a good amount of LR in your tank, saltcreepette, wouldn't the pods have enough hiding spaces there?