FEEDING MANDARIN DRAGONET

by **dasqer** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:41 pm

cheers for that
the tank was started on 28th febuary this year, its only 6 months old. it established really quick. Maybe because I use saltwater from the ocean. I live a couple of minutes from a pristine beach that I can drive onto. Plus my LFS is really informative.
I've had the dragonets for about 3 months.

by **fihsboy** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:56 pm

If your rich you could just feed them tigger pods every week........I dont have that kinda cash though 15-25 bucks a week for food is a lot for fish.....let alone me. College student=small budget.

by **schigara** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:25 pm

For mandarins to get plump or stay plump, they really need to eat a pod every 3-5 seconds while they are awake. That works out to a few thousand per day. Tigger pods are like $25 for about 200 pods....yikes! That would get very expensive.

by **blueshoes2208** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:48 am

ok so after reading this i have decided that you guys will hear of ANY fish or invert before i purchase them

by **dick_headers** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:09 pm

I have a spotted mandarin dragonett for about 2 month now, and like Schigara mentioned they eat all the time while they're awake.

When my moon light LEDs comes on and all the other turns off my fishes go to sleep. By the time my mandarin wakes up he'll find a brand new copepod colony, so life is good again.

My point is ,nightime is a great time for copepods to repopulate in your tank. Refugiums are the best.Amphipods, copepods love macroalgaes and they are repopulate there very quickly. I tun the light off for 6 hours evry night in mine. I noticed a bigger amount of pods every morning. I bought approx. 200 copepods about 2-3 month ago, and I never had to add anymore.

My dragonett knows that I'm the BOSS... Not like SNOWBOSS, but a real BOSS!!! LOL! Love you pal! What's up my man?

by **Snowboss4492** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:51 pm

lol....you da man DH !!!!

everythings moving forward here.......close on the loan in a couple weeks planning on breaking ground on OCT 1st and the tank room stayed in the plans...soooo, WOOHOOO...my wife is the best !!!! as soon as the house is built I'll be in my new wood shop in the basement building my in the wall tank for the tank room - - - ive been reading everything i can find on acrylic and while i'm going plywood and glass on the tank i'm gonna start working with acrylic - -maybe i can generate some income to support my habit with custom sumps and frag tanks ....lol

hows that baby ??? got a college picked out yet?????? they grow so fast man

THE SNOW BOSS

by **dick_headers** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:39 am

It's all good here Boss. I'm glad you're getting close to the big project.. Wish I could help you at the set up. Supervise your redneck ass:-)

Little Claire's doing well, she sleep through the night basically every day. Thank heaven for pacifiers..lol.
Yeah, it's all good. Good to hear from you man.

Dickhead ers

by **Snowboss4492** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:05 am

Hey DH, I'm very happy for you ..........sounds like pappa gots the lil one undercontrol....lol {and momma too of course}

check this guys tank out...........what do you think of his lights? he's useing T-5's and has SPS corals in there.........I'm not leaning towards hards but i would like to do a clam or two in the new tank, think t-5's like that would be ok????

http://www.fishman.smugmug.com/gallery/ ... 1539_q8mFG

Boss

by **dick_headers** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:52 am

Hey boss,

I didn't get into details, but it looks like a square almost shallow tank. Beautiful BTW. That's whay he's using T5's.
I think you can grow clams and/or sps with T5's, VHO's however you call it. If your tank is over 36 inches deep they will survive with T5's but halides would be better.
I think you'll be alright with the T5's. BUT! You'll never have the same shimmering effects with VHO's as you'd have with metal halides.
The T5's penetration sorta' like stops in the middle of your tank, while the MH's are goes down all the way to the bottom. If you have strong currents it is beautiful.
Almost like real sunshine hits your water.
Colorwise not so big of a different. Both lights are beautiful, and brings out the real colors well.
Again, the posted link is very nice..Good found Boss

by **schigara** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:01 am

The link is my LFS owners' home tank. Richard's tank is a cube 240g and is 24" deep. He does keep a couple Maximas in the sand and their growth is quite good.

Personally, I couldn't live without the shimmer effect of my halides but T5's, with the right ballasts and good choice and combination of bulbs can do just as good a job as halides.

36" deep tanks are a bit unusual and, at that depth, I would opt for halides for penetration. I prefer halides at any depth because I prefer the shimmer effect.

Since most tanks are 21-24" deep, lighting choice depends mainly on preference for shimmer or no shimmer.

FEEDING MANDARIN DRAGONET

26 posts • Page 2 of 3

FEEDING MANDARIN DRAGONET

26 posts • Page 2 of 3