[arctictwist]

So my live sand is in, the tank has run with the first 25 lbs of live rock for only a couple weeks. How long do you suggest i wait for the goby...4 weeks? More?

[glampka]

More like 6 months to a year. Mandarins need pods unless you are sure it is taking frozen food.

[arctictwist]

let me rephrase that a little bit. The tank has been running with the live rock cured for about two weeks. It cured for a month before that.

[arctictwist]

wow! that long huh? well i surely dont want to kill em so i guess ill wait

[glampka]

Unless the mandarin is off live food you're going to need a supply of pods. You might want to invest in a HOB refugium to grow them.

[glasta]

yeah i got my mandarin after 6 months in my 29g and already had to go out and buy pods to add to my tank...Im lucky thought because he eats frozen misis and brine too

[Jareth]

Quick add-on question here.

Is it just the slow motion of the water in the refuge that makes that the breeding place for the pods? Or do they need the macroalgae? I added a bottle of tiggerpods to my rock after a feeding to add some microlife to the tank, did I waste my money?

[pete york]

id say dont get the mandarin i made that mistake once and i was so stressed out the entire time i had him i wasnt sure if he was eating wasnt sure if id wake up and hed be dead it was just not worth it i eventually just gave it to my brother who has a 150 gallon tank that has been running for 3 years so unless u have that i wouldnt get one

[arctictwist]

so then a side question, whats a safe sand sifter to get?

[pete york]

lawnmower blenny or scooter blenny

[arctictwist]

would any kind of blenny be ok? i want something more colorful

[pete york]

well as long as u have some algae and such for them to graze on i see no problem with it i have a 30 gallon tank as well with 55 lbs of live rock in it and i have 2 scooter blennys and they are fat little guys that contain all my algae there awesome to watch fly around the tank too i wouldnt get a blenny unless u have live rock though

[arctictwist]

i have about 25lbs of live rock, and i added about 10 lbs of very light, porous dry rock that will hopefully start to be "live" in a month or two.

[arctictwist]

wow, 55 lbs? id like to see how you have that set up

[pete york]

YouTube - 25 day Fowlr tranformation

thats my setup

[arctictwist]

looks good man. ive got about half the volume of rock as you do. Is your tank a 30 tall? Mine is 3 feet wide, yours looks taller.

[pete york]

mines a 30 tall

[CoralGeeks]

you can build pod mounds too, it serves as a place for the pods to feed and raise their young.

[pete york]

how do u do that

[CoralGeeks]

get some liverock rubble, a 1/4" piece of raw shrimp, put the shrimp in the bottom of the tank, cover it with rubble so the fish cant get to it, so the pods can feast. Ive done this several times in the past for my tanks and customer tanks, always worked like a charm. If you dont have a lot of pods to begin with, but a small bottle of them, release them at night so they have a better survival rate to making it to a hiding spot.

[pete york]

what do the pods look like? like what color

[CoralGeeks]

depends on what kind we're talking about, there is amphipods, isopods, copepods, and then there is more, but thats the most common. In all 3 of the types I named, there are both good and bad species. If you do a google image search on copepod, you're going to get a lot of the parasitic copepod that attacks fish. Ive witnessed personally parasitic isopods and amphipods, luckily Ive never had a parasitic copepod cause those get rather large.

[capitalb]

I have a 90G with close to 200lbs of LR set up for 12-13 yrs. My mandarins are breeding like crazy. Thousands of hatchlings every other day.(I've got pics)The most useful product I have found for pod reproduction is REEF BUGS from Marc Weiss. You can get his phone number on line. Tell him mandarin Bob sent you.

[reefnoob1991]

Refugiums are good for pods because they provide protection, and I'm siding with the 1+ year and copepod additives