Pod Eaters - or - Mama Don't Feed Me No Balogna

[leebca]

It seems that all too often I explain some basic marine fish husbandry when it comes to certain Genus and species of specialized eaters. I am not writing about the obligate coral eating fishes. They are just plain wrong to keep in home aquariums. I am writing about those fish in the gray area of the food chain. It is those fishes that are not easy to feed because they are used to finding their food in and around live rock and substrates. Although those foods may be found in the home aquarium, the fish cannot be expected to live on what is found in the home aquarium. There are a couple of reasons for this statement, which I'll explain.

How many fishes (and other marine life) do you imagine have been 'wasted' because they were acquired to correct a problem (usually algae or Aiptasia), OR were acquired by hobbyists who thought their aquarium had enough 'natural' food, then died when the food ran out? I would estimate no less than a million over the past few decades. This is part of the semi-scam to sell more marine life, needlessly.


BIGGER PICTURE

When it comes to a common dwarf Angelfish and Anemonefish, hobbyists and marine aquarists can understand that these fishes are omnivores and eat frozen foods and dried algae that we can buy at the fish store. When it comes to some fishes that eat marine amphipods and/or copepods (pods), we basically know how to provide foods for them. The Copperband Butterflyfish is such a pod eater that we can train to eat a variety of other pod-like foods and plankton. Still, there are some people that believe that they can keep a Copperband Butterflyfish in their display tank because, There are plenty of pods in the tank. Or they put a Tang or other herbivore into the display to eat nuisance macro and micro algae, but think that is all they need to feed this fish. I hope they learn the truth before they acquire the fish (and doom it to a short captive life).

Somehow when marine fishes, like the sand sifters and Mandarins are acquired, hobbyists think these fish can live off what is in the marine system and don not require feeding. Not! For some reason they do not understand that, like the Copperband Butterflyfish, these fishes cannot live off of what is in the display tank. There may be the odd aquarium where they can live, such as one that is being overfed, or an exceptionally large marine system that can support a larger diversity of pod-life for such fishes. But neither of these should be found in the home.


WHAT'S LACKING?

Pod eaters, like the Mandarin fishes, live in a part of the ocean where there are not only a very large number of pods to eat, but a very large diversity of pods. Not only are there many different kinds of pods but those pods are eating a wide variety of foods. All this meets the nutritional needs of the pod eater. The marine system we put in the home cannot come close to the number and this wide diversity. The pod eaters can (and will) eat what is in the marine system, but the fish slowly dies. The fish survives for a while but does not thrive.

There is no need to worry about how many pounds of live rock is needed to support such a fish. There never is enough to support the diversity of pods needed by these specialized feeders. By the time the live rock has aged in the mature aquarium ( The Mature Aquarium ) the pods that are still alive have won the survival battle against their competitors -- the surviving pods have killed off or have taken the available nutrients from their competitor pods. The diversity of the pod population has diminished as these life forms have come to a kind of equilibrium.

What are these pods living on? Just the things available to them in the aquarium. This is no where near the diversity of food sources for pod nutrition found in Nature and the ocean. The pods are not nourished properly; the fish eating the pods are not nourished properly.


TRAINING

If you are considering putting a fish into your marine system that is a specialized feeder, or is used to finding its food in certain places in the ocean, you need to know that the fish must be trained to eat prepared foods, because it will not live off of what is in the aquarium. Check it out.

I am not advocating that people not keep these fishes. I am advocating that if these kinds of fishes are going to be kept, they first must go through a food training process. It takes extra time and attention from the hobbyists to keep these fishes. If they are your goal, then expect to put more effort into keeping them properly nourished. This is best served by first putting them through a quarantine procedure. ALL MARINE FISH suitable for a home marine system can be put through a quarantine procedure. These fishes can be trained to eat prepared foods and this is necessary to ensure they get properly nourished and live a long life and thriving.

An example of training a fish to eat in a quarantine tank (QT), is found here: Food Presentation
A quarantine procedure can be found here: A Fish Quarantine Process

Use food training and provide proper nutrition for (at least) these specialized fishes:
Some Wrasses
All Mandarin fishes
All Sand Sifters
All Pod Eaters (e.g., Copperband, bottom dwelling fishes, and others)

Other than snails, new people to the hobby should not try to keep detritivores (detritus eating fishes or invertebrates).


TRAINING DONE - NOW WHAT?

Then, when these fish are properly trained, they should be put into display tanks with slow eaters to give these trained fishes a chance to eat their fill and obtain all the nutrients they need to thrive. Group the specialized feeders intelligently and consider their needs and abilities in the captive environment. If this is not perfectly done then the hobbyist has to make up their mind in advance that these specialized feeders will need to be spot fed. This will put the reader onto the pat of being a marine aquarist, rather than just a marine hobbyist.

Be prepared to spot feed your pod eater, if the competition in the tank is too great for it to get its own food at feeding time. And the bottom line is: do not keep these kinds of fishes unless you are prepared to provide the extra care and attention they need for their nutritional and environmental well being.

Here are some additional reads of people's successes with the above concept:
Mandarin Diner by Marc Levenson - Reefkeeping.com
Melevsreef.com - Melev's Mandarin Diner

[ClownieTang]

this was a good one.
what if I raise copepods for 6+ months in my refugium? and supplement those pods with phytoplankton!

[leebca]

What if, what if?

The pods you raise in your refugium will be the ones that can live there, under those conditions, that eat the foods you provide. By this I mean they will be just one type or kind or small group of pods. Their nutritional value will depend on what they are fed and feeding one kind of food means they will just have those nutrients. The food(s) they find in your refugium will be limited to the nutrients that were put into the system. Still there is a limit and finite group of nutrients. There will still be a lack of diversity in pod life and a fixed nutritional value. I hope you understood the point about diversity. Our tanks don't, can't, and won't mimic the diversity found in the ocean (no matter how hard we try) where they (pods) find all kinds of different foods to support all different kinds of pods.

There is nothing 'wrong' with raising pods. I did it for years. It's a great treat for the fishes, but it isn't a reasonable diverse diet. That is, it doesn't replace getting them to eat prepared foods where you can get into the fish all the nutrients they need. Still fishes love it, no doubt. Raising live food for the pods got to be a chore for me, but it's a great experience. You might enjoy it for a long time. Give it a go!

[ClownieTang]

why does everybody say to just feed mandarins copepods then? hmmmmm

[leebca]

They lack the in depth knowledge of marine fish nutritional needs. To them a pod is a pod. It would be like feeding a human nothing but pizza for the rest of their life. Will they live? Yes. Will they live long and healthy? No. Is pizza bad? No. Just needs to be eaten with a diet that provides a wider range of nutrients and nutrients in different/varying quantities.

What do they know if their Mandarin lives for 4 years instead of 10 years? They just buy another one and claim they had success with their Mandarin eating pods.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

It also doesn't help that generally, "success" is keeping a mandarin for a minimum of 1 year. My mandarin is getting close to the 1 year mark and if it died, I would call that a total failure.