Biota Aqua cultured Mandarin Dragonet pair experiences. Any new husbandry techniques?

[erixon]

Hi, I have 2 aquacultured blue Mandarins.  And I wanted to share with you my setup.  They are in a Aqueon 14 gallon cube. 2 large live rock centered, bare bottom, with a Tidal 35 HOB filter/surface skimmer.  Light is generic for a 2 gallon.  Coral is mainly GSP and mushrooms.  The pair are about 1 inch long since that's how all Biota bred mandarins are sold. I tried to give them PE Calanus and 1mm NLS pellets from the get go, but no bite. I placed a camera to monitor any activity up until the 3rd day.  Then I just began hatching brine shrimp eggs on the daily just to get them biting.  It's going great so far, but tigriopus californicus copepods have been a disaster at culturing. I've been able to get them going for 3 cycles of generations, but they eventually crash.  Anybody got any experience streamlining any of this experience?  Any tips or advice, besides the regular repetative stuff people say in passing reflex.  I've been able to keep mandarins before in small focused tanks for more than 5 yrs.  But redoing the experience with smaller ones in 2021, I'm curious if anyone else have adapted new techniques. 

 

I have constructed Paul B's feeding device for Mandarins but it was a mixed bag.  Some baby brine shrimp definitely left and died in the container, and I wanted to maximize more of them being eaten.  So I just freely rinse them and dump them in the tank, and then turn off all lights and put a flashlight on the corner for them to gather.  But I'm considering a submersible light I can put in the rocks so the brine shrimp can gather on the rocks.  The baby mandarins definitely take to eating and hunting on the rock surfaces than the glass bottom.