Growing pods in sump for a mandarin

[Mojado]

I have a 40B display tank and a 20L for a sump. Is it possible to grow enough pods to sustain a mandarin using the low-flow portion of my sump? It is the middle section here:

 

 

The area is a tad shy of 4 gallons. Can I just throw some rock in there, some chaeto, and a cheap light, then seed with copods?

 

I assume I'd have to get rid of the sponges to the right and instead go with egg crate. Maybe add 30 gph of flow in the middle section, as currently there is minimal flow as the water goes along the top of that section.

 

I've been reading and, maybe I'm dense but, I haven't found a clear guide on how to do this.

 

Thoughts on viability of A ) growing pods in this fashion and B ) can I grow enough pods to eventually introduce and sustain a mandarin without training it to eat frozen?

[natalia_la_loca]

I'm pretty sure you would need a tremendous water volume to grow enough pods to sustain a mandarin long term. Much easier (comparatively speaking) to just train it to frozen.

[Mojado]

Is it water volume or surface area of live rock that matters? I thought the latter, which is why rubble is better than a solid piece for pods.

[natalia_la_loca]

I would imagine surface area would be the important thing. Still, it's hard to imagine that 4 gallons of volume could provide enough surface area for the thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of pods that would be needed to provide an exclusive long-term diet for a mandarin.

 

For that matter, I wonder if a mandy would be happy eating nothing but pods. My tank is absolutely crawling with pods, and my mandarin has never seemed to put a dent in the population. He's always paid much more attention to the frozen food I've provided him, especially nutramar ova.

[Boggers]

Short term maybe, but not long term. To keep one long term you really will need to get it on frozen. They hunt all day long and do not have a big stomach so it would deplete the population vary rapidly. This is one of the main reasons they need a mature tank.

[Mojado]

If my fudge section had water going into the top and exiting on the bottom, I'd agree. But the sump flow water is flowing along the top. This causes a gentle rolling of the water inside the fudge. It is basically a rolling cylinder of water in there that takes 20 seconds to rotate. I measured this by watching particles make the trip. The particles never leave this fuge area.

 

A quick back of the napkin calculation and the water is tumbling at 460 gallons per hour, though flow density is extremely low (again, because the entire fuge is slowly tumbling at this rate.

 

Here's a video of the slow churn in the 'fudge.

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/P3uqqcmVdSg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Edit: I cannot, for the life of me, embed a youtube video. Ugh.

[chswkt]

For what it's worth here is my experience. I have 2 mandarins, one very happy and long lived in a large system and one not so much despite my best efforts in a system like yours.

 

My psychedelic mandarin happy in my 90 Gallon with a 40 gallon refugium and I do nothing to sustain him. He's been in that tank for 4 years now and still does not eat frozen, pellets, or flakes.

 

I have a 40 gallon shallow reef tank with a 20 gallon refugium and my target mandarin isn't looking too happy. I've been adding pods monthly and feeding phyto plankton every day in order to try to sustain my pod population and it has been a losing battle. He's very thin and lethargic.

 

Both refuguims are filled to the brim with live rock and macro algae.

[Mojado]

For what it's worth here is my experience. I have 2 mandarins, one very happy and long lived in a large system and one not so much despite my best efforts in a system like yours.

 

My psychedelic mandarin happy in my 90 Gallon with a 40 gallon refugium and I do nothing to sustain him. He's been in that tank for 4 years now and still does not eat frozen, pellets, or flakes.

 

I have a 40 gallon shallow reef tank with a 20 gallon refugium and my target mandarin isn't looking too happy. I've been adding pods monthly and feeding phyto plankton every day in order to try to sustain my pod population and it has been a losing battle. He's very thin and lethargic.

 

Both refuguims are filled to the brim with live rock and macro algae.

 

You're bumming me out, man.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Mandys were never easy fish to begin with. Look into training methods before getting one. A fuge alone won't be enough to sustain it, unless the entire 20l functions exclusively as a fuge.

[Nanofreak79]

I made a pod refuge that sits in tank. I used the croshay? Sheets from Jo Ann fabrics. I made a cylinder that's filled with porous and small rubble, then zip tied it all together,top and bottom too. My Mandy is fat and happy, and does not eat frozen. This is in a 34 gallon heavily fed tank, without other pod competing fish.

 

 

 

I've had many mandarins through the years....not from death! Get one eating frozen if possible, which this one did in the store, but refused food once in the tank. This fish was borderline dying IMO, seeing his sunken sides and belly. Fast forward a month later and he's almost fully recovered.

 

 

 

This Mandy thing gets beat to death on every forum. Don't ever buy one cause it's cool, do it because you know you can take care of its needs and have it thrive in your system, wether its 20 gallons or 200 gallons. My 2 cents!

 

 

I don't have fuge, there just poop traps IMO.

[Mojado]

I made a pod refuge that sits in tank. I used the croshay? Sheets from Jo Ann fabrics. I made a cylinder that's filled with porous and small rubble, then zip tied it all together,top and bottom too. My Mandy is fat and happy, and does not eat frozen. This is in a 34 gallon heavily fed tank, without other pod competing fish.

 

 

 

I've had many mandarins through the years....not from death! Get one eating frozen if possible, which this one did in the store, but refused food once in the tank. This fish was borderline dying IMO, seeing his sunken sides and belly. Fast forward a month later and he's almost fully recovered.

 

 

 

This Mandy thing gets beat to death on every forum. Don't ever buy one cause it's cool, do it because you know you can take care of its needs and have it thrive in your system, wether its 20 gallons or 200 gallons. My 2 cents!

 

 

I don't have fuge, there just poop traps IMO.

This is interesting. What size is this rubble pack? you have any pics?

[Tamberav]

If you wanted to try to sustain a single mandarin on pods. I would use a large fuge and plant the display tank with macroalgae. The fuge alone won't be enough but if you wanted to make the DT essentially a fuge using display macro and then feed the tank in excess, it would breed a pretty good # of pods. Keep in mind you need to feed the tank HEAVILY or you will just limit/starve your pods.

 

A small fuge like that alone is definitely not enough. Especially when you take into the fact only some of the pods end up in the display. They are perfectly happy to sit in your fuge and never leave it.

 

I don't see why you wouldn't try to teach it to eat frozen though.

[Mojado]

If you wanted to try to sustain a single mandarin on pods. I would use a large fuge and plant the display tank with macroalgae. The fuge alone won't be enough but if you wanted to make the DT essentially a fuge using display macro and then feed the tank in excess, it would breed a pretty good # of pods. Keep in mind you need to feed the tank HEAVILY or you will just limit/starve your pods.

 

A small fuge like that alone is definitely not enough. Especially when you take into the fact only some of the pods end up in the display. They are perfectly happy to sit in your fuge and never leave it.

 

I don't see why you wouldn't try to teach it to eat frozen though.

My thinking, most likely flawed, was to periodically add excess flow in the sump and wash some pods into the sump's return section and introduce them into the DT.

 

I wanted to put as little responsibility on the Mandarin for its survival. Training it to eat food will depend on that Mandarin's ability to learn to eat frozen. I figured I could control of most of the variables and just provide a pod-heavy environment. That looks like something that is pretty hard given the size of my tank.

[hey]

Another possible pitfall of the below tank sump fuge is the pumps impeller is quite possibly going to beat your pods to death before getting into the dt I am not sure if they will eat dead pods. I have read above tank fuges as being more successful.

[Jimbo662]

Here's what I'm going to try in order to try to establish a good pod population. I've got 4 of them in my sump. After the lights go out I'll take one and set it in the DT overnight and in the morning return it to the sump. They are 4.5"x4.5"x9".