[e_baer]

Hello!

For those of you who have had, or still have a dragonett, what size tank was it in and how many pods did you have?

The other day I looked in the front of my glass and thought there was some little specs of algae, then upon closer examination I noticed there were thousands and thousands of pods.

Do you honestly think my tank can support a dragonett?

[Tonz of fun]

Originally Posted by e_baer

Hello!

For those of you who have had, or still have a dragonett, what size tank was it in and how many pods did you have?

The other day I looked in the front of my glass and thought there was some little specs of algae, then upon closer examination I noticed there were thousands and thousands of pods.

Do you honestly think my tank can support a dragonett?

To be honest IMO you need more live rock in your tank. dragonets feed constantly and those that you see will be gone in a week. You can have a drangonet in a 30g tank provided it had a lot of porous LR.

[Taras1]

I had a 75 gal for my dragonette and it did very well. The tank was about 1 yr old before I added the lil critter. I recently added one to my 90, but sadly it got stung by my BTA and died.

[e_baer]

Originally Posted by Tonz of fun

To be honest IMO you need more live rock in your tank. dragonets feed constantly and those that you see will be gone in a week. You can have a drangonet in a 30g tank provided it had a lot of porous LR.

I have a 55g...with porous rock. I will keep an eye on the population for the next month, and if it seems to hold steady or continue to grow I may go ahead and get one.

[JackedupSOB]

Ive had a scooter dragonet and my seems to be tough as anything . Ive had him about 8 months and he is doing great. He eats forzen brine now. This fish was one of the only ones that survived a tank crash that I had a while back.

[Tonz of fun]

Originally Posted by e_baer

I have a 55g...with porous rock. I will keep an eye on the population for the next month, and if it seems to hold steady or continue to grow I may go ahead and get one.

I have see your pics you have around 50 lbs of lr?

[e_baer]

80lbs of carribean LR. Very porous!

[jipo123]

i have 180 gallon with 150lbs live rock, very healthy and active fish.

[capitalb]

I've got a 90G with 200 lbs. of LR mostly heavy Fla. rock. My dragonets (male and female) look like they're going to explode they're so fat. I use reef bugs from Marc Weiss. It's like viagra for pods. My mandarins also eat frozen food and pellets. I also have a few hundred mandarins in my 10G refugium. They are about 7 to 8 weeks old now and one has finally metamorphasized! Sounds like your just about ready. Good luck.

Bob

[ejwsr]

I remember having this discussion a while back about pods and mandarins.

There are a few variables here that will make or break the survival of a mandarin in any size tank:

a) species of 'pod(s) in the tank
b) adequate refuge from predation for the bugs
c) stress level of the mandarin

a) 'Pod species - Some have a very short generation cycle of a week, others as long as four weeks. think of a generation as from an egg to producing a new egg.

b) I won't go into hiding places as it has been done to death

c) Stress level of the fish - Dragonets secrete toxins when stressed (capture, shipping, recapture, going home....) and can have poisoned themselves to the point that there is no recovery. There are several conclusions that can be had here.

On a side note, I had a female mandarin for about a year in my 12G nano. She died when the new male poisoned the tank and died.

[e_baer]

Put it this way. I have a 55g reef tank with 80lbs of LR. I also have a 20g sump with about 30lbs of LR. then, I have a 40g breeder seagrass/fuge tank with a 5.5" DSB. All 3 of these tanks are looped together making a small ecosystem.

This syste, has only been set up about 6 months, but the 55g has been set up for 3.5 years.

[demonsquirt]

Dragon fish require an established tank and an up and running refug. for proper pod population. Many of the pods they perfer you wont be able to see. And i dought what you see is thousands of pods on your glass.

[pogodzib]

Dragonets can reduce the pod population quickly, so whether you can keep a dragonet alive for the long haul your pods need to be able to multiple at a fast rate. I don't think they should be housed in tanks less than 75 gallons, unless you have a large refugium and a ton of LR. Even some 75 gallon tanks have a tough time producing enough pods for dragonets.

BTW - I have one in my 300 TVW setup, but would feel comfortable adding a second.

[WILLIAM1]

I have a dragonet in my 90 but my pod population has always been extreme they breed like crazy in my overflow and my refugium. My dragonet is one of the fattest fish in my tank. I'm just lucky that I have an ubundance of pods.

[e_baer]

Originally Posted by pogodzib

Dragonets can reduce the pod population quickly, so whether you can keep a dragonet alive for the long haul your pods need to be able to multiple at a fast rate. I don't think they should be housed in tanks less than 75 gallons, unless you have a large refugium and a ton of LR. Even some 75 gallon tanks have a tough time producing enough pods for dragonets.

40g breeder with seagrass and loads of cheato and also 21 mangroves. Yes, I have thousands.

I guess my main question is: How fast does the pod population decrease? Because already known, the pods go in cycles and right now I may only see a few hundred, but 2 weeks from now, I may see several thousand again. I guess my main concern is the interval between "outbreaks".

[pogodzib]

They can devastate the pod population in a matter of days so you wont get the huge pod swings once you get a dragonet, but the pod population will try to multiple quicker to keep up with the food source in the water and on rocks. I forgot about your seagrasses, that and your cheato will help give yoru pods safe place to breed.

[ejwsr]

The math is pretty straight forward for population dynamics without predation. What you are seeing in the cycles are generational die outs of adults. The most important question is what species of 'pods are in your tank? From that data you can estimate when you will have a population that is large enough to be self sustaining under predation pressure.

As for how many pods are consumed? This is where I lobby for a paradigm shift in thinking about copepods. The simple analogy is how many french fries can you eat per day versus how many 1/4 lb cheeseburgers. The same idea can be transferred to 'pods. How many depends on the pods, their caloric value per pod and dietary requirement of the predator. If we would think in terms of biomass and grams per day consumed versus produced we would have a better quantitative figure of merit rather than other subjective measures.

Let's look at three of the 28000 pod species.
T. californicus (tigger pods) are a large, slow generating species. There generation cycle is 28 days with a life span of @90 days. During the last 60 days the females can produce 500 offspring. If 1 gram of biomass is equal to 500 adult pods and a mandarin eats 1 gram per day then it is rather intuitive that the population is not going to survive.

Other species are more prolific and have shorter generation times and therefore can establish a surviving population faster under predation pressure.

The other thing is not the total weight of live rock, but the surface area to volume ratio. The bugs need a spot to graze. The best analogy would be basketballs to marbles. Marbles have a higher surface area to volume ratio than basketballs.