Am I starving my Green Mandarin Goby???

T

tzylak

Member
I got my Green Mandarin two months ago. It looked shy but "normal".
Now it explores all over the tank but it looks gaunt. The head looks sunken in. The body above its centerline in the dorsal fin section has no meat in it and it looks like a cockpit section of the SR-71, not round or bulging but concave.
I feed the fish frozen Mysis shrimp. It passes by the cloud of food like it is not there. Yesterday I gave the fish small chunks of lobster that I caught on Saturday and all the fish and shrimp were gorging themselves except this one.
Is the fish blind or just anorexic??
Help!

Fish: 2 Clown, 1 Green Mandarin, 1 Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Fire Shrimp, 1 Corral Banded Shrimp, 1 Arrow Crab, 2 Peppermint Shrimp plus bunch of Bristle Worms and CUC.
Reef: 50 lb. Sand, 70 lb. Rock, Frog Spawn, Button Polyps, Mushrooms, Kenya Trees, Feather Star, and recently, several aiptasias. . . :-(.
Tank: 50g hex, overflow, 20um filter, 23 gal sump, 2 pumps, 3 in-tank circulators, 5 UH fluorescent, chiller 650, heater 150W, skimmer 65, I got it on 7/18/2014 but it is established for over 15 years!!
 
It's generally recommended to have a 100gal or bigger for mandarins. They are pretty much obligate copepod eaters. The vast majority will ignore other foods. He's likely wiped out all the pods, and is well on his way to starving to death.
 
+1 to all of that. I have a mandarin in my 265 (with 200 lbs. of rock) and though I have never seen it eat any prepared foods, it is not thin. I still see plenty of copepods in the tanks so whatever the magic threshold is to keep this fish, I've clearly exceeded it.

Once a fish gets to the point that it's lost significant body weight, probably the process is irreversible; however, a buddy of mine has had success feeding his mandarin with cyclopeeze and nutramar ova. Mine never ate either though.
 
this is a (my) fat, healthy mandarin.

IMAG0480.jpg


if the mandy isn't plump, it is not eating enough.

i would recommend quick corrective action if you even suspect that it is being under fed.

Nutramar Ova is a good supplemental food source that mine eats with vigor. Frozen Cyclop-eeze can also be helpful. see if your local fish store sells pods to help supplement. and lastly, make a PaulB style feeder and start hatching baby brine shrimp nauplii to supplement.

here is a more detailed post:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22235294&postcount=11
 
It takes about a 20 gallon mature refugium PER mandarin to keep one supplied with copepods. Most eat live food only. It is starving, and may have gone beyond the point of recovery, but you can buy bottled live pods online. Lacking a fuge, you might set up small piles of live rock rubble, pieces about marble size to taw size, in several places about the tank.
 
Even supplemental copepods usually aren't enough. These guys eat constantly. You'll spend a fortune just trying to keep up. Try your best to get him on one of the aforementioned prepared foods, and do what you can to increase pod populations. (refugium, pod pile, etc)
 
The best thing to do would be to take the fish to an lfs where they may have pods in the system.
 
Most mandarin gobies don't understand that frozen food is edible, and frozen food isn't nutritious enough to keep them alive anyway.
 
I thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience.
So much to learn . . . If they could only voice their troubles. . . .
Thanks!!
Tom
 
Ask your lfs if they can find him a home, or hold him for you until your tank is a little older. A 50 gallon can support one IF there is a healthy sand/rock/cheato fuge feeding into it with no sponges or filter socks to trap them as they cycle through.
 
Like some others posted try bloodworm as frozen ones worked for me. I went through a similar issue with mine and then one day he just started eating frozen,

Now when I feed he eats right out of the baster. I still add pods once a month though to keep population up.
 
So yesterday I removed the sock filter and purchased some Tiger (??) Copepods at lfs. -A 6-oz bottle with 100-200 of them for $25.

1. Seems expensive for a less than a pea-size worth of food. Is this for real??

I put 3/4 in the tank and 1/4 in the sump where I've been adding some sand over the last 2 weeks.

2. I wonder how many were eaten by the Mandy (if at all) vs. the other fish.
3. I wonder if Copepods multiply and how long is their breeding cycle.
4. Other than pouring them into the water, what else can I provide to make them thrive and multiply?
5. Should I turn off the protein skimmer in the sump? -I see it unlikely that they are free swimmers to get close to the pump . . .without the threat of getting eaten first by the fish . .
The tank is old but my knowledge base is awfully thin.
Please help!
Thanks, Tom
 
tzylak said:
So yesterday I removed the sock filter and purchased some Tiger (??) Copepods at lfs. -A 6-oz bottle with 100-200 of them for $25.

1. Seems expensive for a less than a pea-size worth of food. Is this for real??

I put 3/4 in the tank and 1/4 in the sump where I've been adding some sand over the last 2 weeks.

2. I wonder how many were eaten by the Mandy (if at all) vs. the other fish.
3. I wonder if Copepods multiply and how long is their breeding cycle.
4. Other than pouring them into the water, what else can I provide to make them thrive and multiply?
5. Should I turn off the protein skimmer in the sump? -I see it unlikely that they are free swimmers to get close to the pump . . .without the threat of getting eaten first by the fish . .
The tank is old but my knowledge base is awfully thin.
Please help!
Thanks, Tom
Click to expand...

here's where you get your pods.

http://getyourpods.com/

(wait for their buy one get one free deal)

http://www.reefs2go.com/

(only get their BOGO pods. ONLY! nothing else lives)
 
tzylak said:
So yesterday I removed the sock filter and purchased some Tiger (??) Copepods at lfs. -A 6-oz bottle with 100-200 of them for $25.

1. Seems expensive for a less than a pea-size worth of food. Is this for real??

I put 3/4 in the tank and 1/4 in the sump where I've been adding some sand over the last 2 weeks.

2. I wonder how many were eaten by the Mandy (if at all) vs. the other fish.
3. I wonder if Copepods multiply and how long is their breeding cycle.
4. Other than pouring them into the water, what else can I provide to make them thrive and multiply?
5. Should I turn off the protein skimmer in the sump? -I see it unlikely that they are free swimmers to get close to the pump . . .without the threat of getting eaten first by the fish . .
The tank is old but my knowledge base is awfully thin.
Please help!
Thanks, Tom
Click to expand...
I guess you missed my previous post.

"Even supplemental copepods usually aren't enough. These guys eat constantly. You'll spend a fortune just trying to keep up. Try your best to get him on one of the aforementioned prepared foods, and do what you can to increase pod populations. (refugium, pod pile, etc)"

Sounds like you spent $25 on maybe a couple hours worth of food, which the starving Mandarin likely didn't even find. I don't believe tigger pods reproduce in tank.
 
I personally would, in your situation, get a HOB fuge and dump the copepods there. This is no return pump or skimmer they have to go through to get to the DT. I have a friend who has a HOB for his 90g and his mandarin literally (I'm dead serious) looks like a sumo wrestler. Dump a bottle of them in the HOB five and be done with it. They really work.
 
tzylak said:
So yesterday I removed the sock filter and purchased some Tiger (??) Copepods at lfs. -A 6-oz bottle with 100-200 of them for $25.

1. Seems expensive for a less than a pea-size worth of food. Is this for real??

I put 3/4 in the tank and 1/4 in the sump where I've been adding some sand over the last 2 weeks.

2. I wonder how many were eaten by the Mandy (if at all) vs. the other fish.
3. I wonder if Copepods multiply and how long is their breeding cycle.
4. Other than pouring them into the water, what else can I provide to make them thrive and multiply?
5. Should I turn off the protein skimmer in the sump? -I see it unlikely that they are free swimmers to get close to the pump . . .without the threat of getting eaten first by the fish . .
The tank is old but my knowledge base is awfully thin.
Please help!
Thanks, Tom
Click to expand...

Buying and feeding pods is not a winning proposition, unless you have so much money you don't know what to do with it. You need a fuge that is full of pods. The tiger pods are great, but they are meant to start your own culture -- not for direct feedings.

The best advice was to re-home the mandy and hope it makes it. Before getting another, spend 6-12 months stocking a refugium full of pods. With a 50g tank, a large fuge full of pods is about the only way to do it.
 
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