Diary of a mandarin pair

[iluvmyfishes]

I have kept mandarins in my 45 gal seahorse tank for years so I felt confident putting a pair into my 150 gal. They did great for a few weeks, swam everywhere side by side. I was spot feeding a combo of artic pods, cyclops, and newly hatched live bb in addition to my normal feedings. Then the male started chasing the female and I noticed they were getting really skinny. Every time the female would come out to hunt the male attacked her, he looked skinny and she had torn fins and looked starved and ragged. This was because even in a 150 gal with a sump and feeding extra pods, they were not eating enough. I thought about taking out the female and I think I would have if I could have caught her without having to take apart the tank. I started spot feeding frozen Mysis, frozen adult enriched brine, and frozen blood worms every morning where the female was hiding and along the bottom of the tank.. I was so relieved when I saw the female finally aggressively eat frozen blood worms. Now they are fat, healthy, and happy swimming together everywhere again and eat a ton of frozen foods. I stopped daily feedings of the artic pods and cyclops and now spot feed them a combo of frozen Mysis, brine and blood worms twice a day, and always spot feed frozen bloodworms in the morning in the rocks where they live to make sure they are starting the day eating their favorite thing.

I have learned that every time, no matter what size tank I am using, I will put my mandarins in a 10 gal QT with a sponge filter and feed them live bb and frozen mixed until I see they are eating frozen. No matter what size tank you have, if you start them in a QT this way to get them on frozen shrimp or blood worms, you will be successful keeping them, mine definitely preferred the frozen blood worms as a first frozen food to try. Hope this helps anyone looking to keep these beautiful fish.

 

[michaelg]

That does seem to be the way to do it- start them in a small tank until they start eating frozen foods. My LFS is doing this- they fortunately have a stable population of mysid shrimp in their system to supplement them.

 

[Vanpire]

How hard was it to get them eating frozen food?

 

[davocean]

Actually if you understand a mandarin's metabolism and the fact they eat 1-3 pods per minute you'd realize even if they do eat frozen food it's a drop in the bucket towards what they really need, which is pods.
So unless you are dosing that food constantly, or providing a sheltered feeder that provides a constant supply it's not really making that much difference.

 

[iluvmyfishes]

Yes, Keeping mandarins requires more than just dropping them in a tank and letting them eat pods. I used to just keep them in my seahorse tank. I had a feeding dish so they saw the seahorses eating and got the hang of it pretty quickly. In my 150 gal, from everything I read and thought I knew and was told, I thought they would be fine due to the size of the tank, but they weren't and I still had to do a little extra to make sure they did not starve. I spot fed frozen in to the rock where I knew they lived. It's really not hard to get a mandarin to eat frozen. But it's much easier if you use a bare bottom QT and hatch brine and mix frozen in to get them eating before they are in a community tank. I will be starting them like that from now on no matter what size tank they are going in to.

 

[lespaul339]

It's one fish I would love to have, but due to their feeding requirements I just don't even want to try. Kudos to those that can successfully keep them though!

 

[Vadafallon]

Dose Phyto daily, keep a refug in the sump with some chaeto and live rock and that keeps the pods rocking.I have no issues with my Mandarin in a 60 cube. My Mandarin is nice and fat.

 

[davocean]

Yes, Keeping mandarins requires more than just dropping them in a tank and letting them eat pods.

Not really, if you have a big enough fuge, LR or whatever keeps pods producing enough for them that is all that is needed.
I've had several mated pairs and singles over the years, never trained or spot fed any of them

 

[ThRoewer]

Not really, if you have a big enough fuge, LR or whatever keeps pods producing enough for them that is all that is needed.
I've had several mated pairs and singles over the years, never trained or spot fed any of them

Sooner or later they will pick up going after frozen or even dried foods all by themselves if kept with other fish. They are definitely not as ignorant of their tank mates as it appears.
Last week I caught my mandarin male going after a piece of sea-lettuce in mid water. He spat it out after realizing it was algae, but my guess is he would have swallowed if it was flake food.

BTW: I added my mandarins 2 weeks after setting up my 18" cube. After a year I moved them to my 100 gallon tank and they are still doing fine.

 

[steallife904]

have a pair in my 150 going on a year. took about 3-4 months before they started eating frozen food I was feeding the tank with (Rods and Mysis). Even though they eat it, they still hunt pods all day. I actually add new pods at least once every 2 months to keep the population up. My LFS sells pods for like 8 bucks and there has to be half a million of them in each batch. That's what has worked for me anyway

 

[iluvmyfishes]

I think that mandarins learn to eat frozen faster in a smaller tank than in a bigger one, at least that is my experience. But I had slower tank mates and a feeding dish in the 45 gal seahorse tank. Based on my prior years of experience with them I never thought I would have any issues in a 150 gal so the fact that they started fighting and came close to starving was really surprising. Happily they are thriving now with no issues. My female has a really fat rounded belly so I think they will start spawning soon.

 

[Vanpire]

Thanx iluvmyfishes.

I know all about the pods and raising pods and dosing phyto and so on. That is old news.

What I like to see are potential new methods of keeping these beautiful fish. Thanx for sharing your experience.

 

[ThRoewer]

You can intentionally train them on frozen Mysis, but that requires live Mysis, ideally of the same kind. I've done it successfully back in Germany when I was catching and freezing Mysis myself. When I went on a fishing trip I usually also brought a few buckets of live Mysis and shrimp back to feed to my fish.

Since these were temperate fresh or brackish water Mysis they would usually not live to long in saltwater at tropical temperatures. This way the mandarins learned that the dead are identical to the live and would start eating both equally. In fact, they soon preferred the dead ones as they wouldn't flee.

The same should work with Brine Shrimp, though those are of little nutritional value. But they can be used as a starter food.

 

[davocean]

Yeah I understand some will develop a taste for other than pods, a few of mine did, a number did not.
This is why I approach this differently, just make sure you have enough LR and a big enough fuge, and occasionally you might want to boost that fuge w/ a mix of pods, some types will do better in our systems than others.
On top of this I keep it to a minimum of pod eaters as competition, my anthia may pick some here and there, but I won't keep certain wrasses or gobies, and once I had a copperband that was a pod hog, he was traded out for another.
Yes it is nice to see the ones that start to eat other foods, but keeping their metabolism in mind the best chance of success is just provide them w/ what they naturally eat and allow them to eat as often as needed.
My 120g has a pair, fat and happy, there should be no reason OP's 150g should sustain a pair providing enough LR and fuge.

 

[iluvmyfishes]

My centerpiece show fish is a Moorish Idol that I have had over a year. I feed him multiple times a day with a wide variety of frozen,pellet and nori. I also fed Artic pods,Cyclops and even newly hatched brine for the Mandarins. I have a large 3 chamber sump with additional live rock and. Cheto .My mandarins still did not thrive until I added frozen blood worms to the diet. All I am saying is if you have a mandarins that are getting skinny try spot feeding frozen blood worms. Mine will eat them every 3 seconds like pods until they are gone.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

I have had my pair for about 2 years now.They started eating frozen and flake food after about 6 months.My tank was up and running for 2 years before introducing them to the tank,so I would have plenty of pods for them to eat.