mandarin too fat?

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Can a mandarin get too fat? Mine is so fat, it kinda wobbles as it swims. (it doesn't swim much...mostly "hops" around the bottom of the tank) I know it sounds funny, but he's never been this fat before. I added a female, thinking that would help....nope, she's getting fat too. Plus I still have tons of pods in the tank. If it was a regular fish that I fed, I would just feed less. I can't do that with this pair because I don't feed them at all, lol. The pair of mandarins are in my 65G sea horse tank. (no sea horses in it now) The only other fish in there are 1 fire fish and 1 yellow watchman gobie. For cleaners there are 2 peppermint shrimp, 50 snails, 5 crabs, 1 XL turbo snail. I feed the tank nori for the snails and cleaners and DT's phyto for the corals and pods. Mysis for the sun coral and ricordias.

I'd call Jenny Craig.....but they don't have "low cal" pods on their menue.

Angie

[mutts]

be happy they arn't starving is all i can say, you seem to be having the opposite problem then most, you must be doing somthing right

[jojo22]

I agree with mutts we hear a lot about these guy starving so maby the are makeing up for all there buddies.

[dakar]

Maybe time to get her a lil' treadmill... Fat and happy likely won;t hurt the fish any... since you've been frontload the tank with pods she's likely just eating because it's available...

[mtodd001]

how do you get that many pods in your tank?

[Whoyah]

I can't imagine them being fat and happy is really that bad. Once you add more seahorses back into the tank I am sure things will even out a bit.
My pod population really started taking one when I started dosing phytoplankton. Its really amazing what happens when you start feeding the tank what it needs.

[dakar]

how do you get that many pods in your tank?

Time....and the population will increase, a refuge will help dramtically. Or they can be purchased to add to your system.

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Besides the mandarins, there isn't much else to eat them. I do have a refugium in my sump on this tank and I do dose DT's. Plus there is TONS of macro in both the sump and the display tank. Ideal breading grounds for pods. I do not have amphipods in there....only copepods. The sea horses that passed away ate all of the amphipods. They were their favorite treat to hunt for in the tank. They just never seemed to eat the copepods...too small maybe. Right now I have a surplus of copepods. In a month or so, with now having 2 mandarins I may not. That's the funny thing with pods in a tank. They seem to go in spurts. I will have 1000's for a few months then they seem to die off for a month or so, then I notice the population explosion again. Hope that helps.

Angie

[dakar]

Where are you finding DT's? No place in Madison can get it at all, and haven't been able to for some time now...