Do NOT get a mandarin goby or scooter blenny...until...

You really dong need to buy pods. If conditions are right they will grow like crazy. Adding pods is kind of like taking vitamins. Can't hurt but kind of a waste of money


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Not sure how old he was when I got him, and I am terrible with timelines, but I've had him for a few years. His tank mates are a sunburst anthia,dusky wrasse, blue star wrasse, black spot wrasse,twistii wrasse,and a red firefish.
 
The greens are a smaller species, in general---the blue/reds or green/reds get quite a bit larger, with commensurately larger appetite. I'm glad you could help him, and by the look of it you've got a fair bit of convolute rockwork, which helps greatly. I've not kept a green, that said. The dragonets are odd fish, and how much they can get by on pellet is still argued (re nutrition), but it likely does help if they can get some. I've had one red-blue take to pellet; I've had a scooter blenny do it with long-term success. The survival of the ORA mandys is always in debate, and again, I'm not sure which sort they are. The best practice is to give them a tank with plenty of backup and to protect that pod supply, because once they get hollow-bellied from lack thereof, they often lose the impulse to hunt and eat, and just sit there, starving to death with live food right in front of them. They're such a 'basic' fish that the prey-response is hardwired, the eating is pretty constant, and if the chemical trigger ceases through starvation, the fish is doomed: this is why many rescues fail: the trigger has quit. Glad you got this little guy in time and have given him a home. The one I had take to pellet was eating Formula One Sinking pellet, but I haven't been able to lay hands on that product for some time.
 
Not sure how old he was when I got him, and I am terrible with timelines, but I've had him for a few years. His tank mates are a sunburst anthia,dusky wrasse, blue star wrasse, black spot wrasse,twistii wrasse,and a red firefish.

I have had a target mandarin that would practically eat anything, but it still starved, the other fish would take all the food because they are such slow eaters. How are you getting around that?
 
I use ocean nutrition green pellets, and I'll throw 3 or 4 pinches in every evening.
I must be extremely lucky because I have had this success with two other scooters. One died in the winter storm that took sk8ers tank out, one I gave to a friend once I got him on pellets, and then this guy.
 
Mandarin gobies aren't gobies and scooter blennies aren't blennies: they were misidentified early on. They're both dragonets, and eat copepods for a living. They're for large mature tanks.
Makes sense.
Though a couple suppliers claim to have raised their mandarins on commercial diets from infancy (and even list them under dragonets, in at least one case) which I would love to find more info on.

As someone coming in from the tarantula hobby, mis-naming of things (and then people continuing to use the old, wrong common name) is a familiar issue.

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