Breeding Mandarins

[ct_vol]

So I saw this article in Coral Magazine and thought it might be fun to pass along, possibly for Matt, oh and Paul... But it is a good read for the club in general... I would also suggest clicking on the link at the bottom of the article about the Smithsonian Aquarium...


http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/breeding-mandarins

 

[ct_vol]

Here is a You Tube Video of Sant Ocean Hall's Coral Reef Display that is talked about in the second article...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0qasqWG5cg

 

[GPhiAce]

Quick and easy reads, i like it

 

[EvilMel]

I would love to find an easy way to wean mandarins onto prepared foods. I think it would be a real benefit to the species.

I wonder if these captive raised mandarins (which will probably eventually be tank bred?) will more easily accept prepared foods.

 

[acrodave]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14789117#post14789117 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EvilMel
I would love to find an easy way to wean mandarins onto prepared foods. I think it would be a real benefit to the species.

I wonder if these captive raised mandarins (which will probably eventually be tank bred?) will more easily accept prepared foods.

from what i understand they do take frozen

 

[macclellan]

Thanks, good stuff, especially considering their popularity and fragility in captivity and the behavior of wild populations, which aren't exactly conducive to the aquarium trade.

 

[EvilMel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14790036#post14790036 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by acrodave
from what i understand they do take frozen

They actually do not, at least not in about 99.99% of cases.

You might find some random yahoo that tells you that theirs is eating prepared foods but commonly the fish won't eat enough prepared foods to keep it from starving to death. They have a VERY poor survivorship rate in our tanks.

That's why I'm a friggin' mandarin nazi. In my admittedly totally biased opinion, your tank should be bigger than 100 gallons and set up for at least a year before you even hint at thinking about getting one. I had a mandarin in my 135g but only got him after I'd had the tank for like a year and a half. He was the fattest, happiest little sausage-looking fish. He died several years later but not from starvation (he was fat even the day he died). Then I waited another year before I got another one.

The tang police look mild in comparison to me when it comes to this topic.

edit: is it me, or does that picture above look SUPER DUPER photoshopped?

 

[ct_vol]

Well, I guess you could call me a random yahoo... Mine will eat frozen mysis... At first I would hold it with tweezers right in front of its face untill it sucked a few down... Now it just chases them around the aquarium with the rest of them... I do consider this to be the exception and not the rule though... And I don't like how the article says you can train the Mandarins to eat, but doesn't go into detail on how to train them to eat...

The picture might not be photoshopped... A lot of times certain pigments in fish will fluoresce when a picture is taken with a flash... Its very common in flasher wrasses and some angels... It mostly works with blues...

 

[cee]

yahoo here too. Both of mine take frozen brine and mysis and even chase it down and eat it as it drifts along the bottom. Mr. mandarin taught Mrs. mandarin how to do it, too! But I agree, it is atypical, and it took the male over a year to figure it out on his own. Plus I suspect they probably could not survive on it alone because they'd be out compeated by the other fish. I think a big part of why they fare poorly has to do with how they're caught. Used to be almot exclusively cyanide or other temporary paralysis-rendering chemicals, but Matt tells me they're using tiny barbless spears now through the tail muscle to catch them.

 

[EvilMel]

That's great that your mandarins eat frozen! I wish to goodness I could have one but with such a tiny tank and such a peachy attitude I would never try it.

I did offer to let Paul put his mandarin in my tank for a little while since I've got a ton of pods so we can let his tank recover a little bit of its pod population (or find the mandarin a different home), with the help of some tigger pods.

 

[acrodave]

mel i was talking about the captive babys