Red Scooter Blenny/Dragonet - frozen enough?

[purestar]

I just got the most adorable little red scooter blenny. Had him for about three days and I've luckily been able to feed him frozen brine, mysis and blood worms.

Problem is he only eats a couple of bites (initially, when I drop it right in front of him). I try multiple times to put food in front of him and he usually hops right over it. Later I see him picking at the sand and liverock, but I'm afraid that my orchid dottyback ate all the pods since I no longer see them swimming around.

From what I've read, I'm worried that this little bit of frozen won't be enough. Should I be trying to recultivate the pods? Any advice if I don't have a fuge? Can I just put a ball of chaeto in my tank and reintroduce some pods?

Do hope I can keep my little Kermit fat and happy :-)

Any advice??

[kamloops_reefer]

yes I believe they require pods - I have a temporary fish holder made from aluminum and white mesh that is hanging in the aquarium holding my cheato while I wait for my sump - I find this works great as a temporary fix, might be something that could help you out!

[Skimmer Juice]

I do not think frozen is enough to keep a scooter alive. Have had one eating cyclops, ROE (reef nutrition) , mysis , and he still got skinny over time and died . Same with Mandarins I do not believe even if they are eating frozen they can stay alive for an extended period of time. Always hate when I see people with them in a 20g and think just because its eating frozen it will be fine. That's just what I have observed with my experiences keeping the fish . I will no longer try try keep scooters and currently only keep a target Mandarin . If you do not have a well established pod population with no other pod eating fish I would stay clear of trying to keep them.
All though if you could get a captive bred Mandarin might be a different story. not sure if they have got Scooter's to breed yet .

[purestar]

Thanks for the advice. If I am going to try to re-establish my pod-pop, then is having chaeto the way to go? I could try to keep it in a mesh breeding net in the tank or a HOB filter. Then, is the idea that I would harvest pods from there to reinject into the tank? Is this a better idea than to just keep a clump of the algae wedged in behind live rock without barrier in the tank so the pods could swim freely? I do have some red macro algae already in there.

I did have tons of pods before the orchid dottyback. Perhaps having the two fish are not compatable

[albert_dao]

Text me later, I'll build you a pod barracks on the weekend

[purestar]

Thanks Albert. Will give you a shout later...

Actually, after watching the little guy today, it amazes me that they could ever catch and eat pods. He seems so slow moving by nature. When I had a variety of pods, they seemed to swim around in and out and underneath the live rocks quite quickly. This guy just seems to hop about, back and forth, picking at the sand, seemingly arbitrarily, and same with climbing and picking at the live rock.

Today he ate two pieces of mysis and later when I tried blood worms didn't seem interested. Could this be because he's small (a little over an inch), maybe a juvenille??

Is there some microscopic organism he's getting to eat in my sandbed or is he doing this because he's starving??