Mandarin Dragonet - Green

I added this guy to my tank: http://tinyurl.com/dshws

But, I've noticed a up swing in turbidity of the water. Sure enough,
this little guy is putting up a cloud of dust through his *gills*.

I thought pods would be enough for him, but it seems that I better feed
him better. Where does one find live worms and brine?

--Kurt

KurtG wrote:

I added this guy to my tank: http://tinyurl.com/dshws

But, I've noticed a up swing in turbidity of the water. Sure enough,
this little guy is putting up a cloud of dust through his *gills*.

I thought pods would be enough for him, but it seems that I better feed
him better. Where does one find live worms and brine?

Uh, you need to get a refugium, fast. They'll only reliably eat
copepods, and only some will eat brine. And you can't expect them
to eat worms, which will foul the tank.

Mike

wrote:
Uh, you need to get a refugium, fast. They'll only reliably eat
copepods, and only some will eat brine. And you can't expect them
to eat worms, which will foul the tank.

Plenty of pods to eat. My live rocks are coated in them.

Just seems that my water is crystal clear in the morning, but cloudy by
night time. I didn't notice this before, and the Mandarin is put up
small clouds of silt while it eats.

--Kurt

KurtG wrote on Mon, 04 Dec 2006:
I added this guy to my tank: http://tinyurl.com/dshws
But, I've noticed a up swing in turbidity of the water. Sure enough, this
little guy is putting up a cloud of dust through his *gills*.

I really doubt this one fish is causing noticable changes to your water
quality.

I thought pods would be enough for him, but it seems that I better feed him
better. Where does one find live worms and brine?

How big is your tank? You really shouldn't have a Dragonet unless you have
75+ gallon tank, with _mature_ (1+ year) live rock and sand.

You really need to support a dragonet's food requirements solely through
a natural population of pods.

If you're getting into needing to feed the dragonet, then you don't have the
right tank. It's rarely feasible to provide them regular external food.

I've got a psychedelic mandarin and a spotted mandarin (separated by a
partition). The psychedelic one basically ignores my fish feeding. I've seen
it nibble on a (frozen) brine shrimp or mysis shrimp perhaps once very few
months or so.

My spotted mandarin, for some reason, I seem to have gotten lucky. While it
mostly feeds itself, it seems to regularly snack a bit on (frozen) mysis
shrimp when I feed the seahorses (in the same tank). My understanding is that
this is not typical.

Finally: you have implied a connection between "putting up a cloud of dust",
and "pods [aren't] enough [...] better feed him better." What's the
connection? Mandarins doing their regular eating will often spit "dust"
through their gills. What makes you think this has anything to do with the
Mandarin being hungry? Or do you have some other observation which suggests
it isn't getting enough to eat?

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I'd
just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about
doing that anyway. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey [1999]

Don Geddis wrote:
How big is your tank? You really shouldn't have a Dragonet unless you have
75+ gallon tank, with _mature_ (1+ year) live rock and sand.

110 w/ lots of live rock and plenty of pods.

Finally: you have implied a connection between "putting up a cloud of dust",
and "pods [aren't] enough [...] better feed him better." What's the
connection? Mandarins doing their regular eating will often spit "dust"
through their gills. What makes you think this has anything to do with the
Mandarin being hungry? Or do you have some other observation which suggests
it isn't getting enough to eat?

I was hoping that with live brine or worms maybe it would slow down it's
pod eating. Not that I mind that it's eating pods, but just the "dust"
coming out of it's gills.

I've noticed a difference in turbidity between morning (clear) and
evening (cloudy). And, I only noticed this after the mandarin was
introduced to the tank (along w/ coral beauty).

--Kurt

KurtG wrote on Tue, 05 Dec 2006:
I was hoping that with live brine or worms maybe it would slow down it's pod
eating. Not that I mind that it's eating pods, but just the "dust" coming
out of it's gills.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I don't think that theory will work.

Pretty much all fish prefer to be constant grazers. In the wild they eat
large volumes of low-nutrition food. We're lucky that most ornamental fish,
in captivity, can survive on rare (e.g. daily) feedings of high-nutrition
food. Mostly it's because they don't have any choice.

But a mandarin is built to spend the whole day constantly scouring the rockwork
and eating pods. I don't think anything will stop this behavior, even if you
do manage to find some food to add that it will eat. They just constantly
forage.

(All that said, I'm still suspicious that a single mandarin causes visible
daily changes in water quality in a 110 gallon tank. I suspect that you've
misidentified the cause of your water clarity problem.)

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
It's too bad that the power of tornados cannot be harnessed somehow, and then
stored, and then released in the form of powerful, swirling winds which could
somehow be used for useful purposes. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey [1999]

Don Geddis wrote:
(All that said, I'm still suspicious that a single mandarin causes visible
daily changes in water quality in a 110 gallon tank. I suspect that you've
misidentified the cause of your water clarity problem.)

In that case, my mandarin is very happy and has adjusted well. There's
no lack of pods to forage, and s/he does exactly that.

I'll keep an eye on the water clarity. I'm coming up on a water and
filter change anyway.

--Kurt