Do not get a mandarin if...

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brett559 said:
So you can't keep a mandarin with any type of wrasse? Really?
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You certainly can. It just depends on the species. For example, a six line wrasse would be a terrible choice to keep with a mandarin. They eat the same pods, yet the six line is about 10x more active than a mandarin and therefore will out compete the mandarin. And once the pods are gone the six line will also eat dry or frozen foods the mandarin won't typically eat even if it's sitting on its lip. However, in my experience, other wrasses, for example a melanurus wrasse are not eating the same pods that the mandarin is. Mandarins typically eat small copepods like tisbe or tigger pods. A melanurus is after much larger amphipods and mysid shrimp. I have never witnessed my melanurus snatch a tisbe pod off my glass. However, my mandarin will gladly clean up the glass covered with tisbe pods in minutes.

So we can't make a blanket statement that wrasses and mandarins cannot coexist in our system, more so, as with anything in this hobby, we have to make smart choices and choose our livestock wisely by doing a lot of research.
 
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Unfortunately mandarins just drop the eggs all over the place as they are doing here and it is usually behind the rocks in the early morning.
The fry are as big as this ----------> , <---------- and the tank is 6' long, very old and full of rock and coral. There is no way I could collect them in there. If I were to set up another tank just for them (and empty my tank to catch them) I could raise them because most fry are not hard to raise. They do it themselves in the sea with no help from us. All they need is tons of food.


Of course I could park this outside my home

 
LMAO. Ah yes, a box container of "pods" would be sure to sustain them. :lmao:

I thought the mandarins did a dance just before lights out throwing eggs and sperm into the water column and so the larva would have to be snatched out with a sine net and then put in a rearing tank. I assume rotifers would be the choice of food for the fry.
 
I got up this morning while it was still dark outside. My tank lights had been off all night. I got a flashlight and shined it along the side of the tank. I could see what looked like thousands of tiny particles swirling around in the water. There appeared to be some on the glass too, but the water column was just full of little particles. Are these pods?

I've been running a fuge with chaeto for about 8 months. I keep flasher and fairy wrasses.
 
brett559 said:
I got up this morning while it was still dark outside. My tank lights had been off all night. I got a flashlight and shined it along the side of the tank. I could see what looked like thousands of tiny particles swirling around in the water. There appeared to be some on the glass too, but the water column was just full of little particles. Are these pods?

I've been running a fuge with chaeto for about 8 months. I keep flasher and fairy wrasses.
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It's likley they are pods. Every night shortly after my moonlights come on, I have, for lack of a better term, sparkling or flashing little specs swarming throughout the water column. I cannot 100% confirm they are pods, but my bangaii cardinal, pair of clowns and bartletts anthias harem go nuts snatching the unidentified particles from the water. So I think it's safe to assume they are pods and given this is typical of natural reefs where all the zooplankton come out from hiding at night to eat, I'm confident they are some form of small crustacean.
 
smittysmith2 said:
I'm probably the newest of the newbies. What are pods?
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There are two types of pods we encounter in the marine tank: 1)amphipods 2) copepods.

Pods are crustaceans and look like little bugs. They're usually imported into our system via live rock/live sand/chaeto or other algae from someone else's tank. If given sufficient time and diatoms/cyanobacteria or algae to feed on they multiply and provide an additional and nutritional food source for your small fish which greatly benefits them.
 
Are these pods?
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They could be pods or the fry of something. That happens all the time in my tank and sometimes it is the babies of shrimp as they hatch live by the thousands. Any small fish that spawns has really tiny fry also. Most of the time, this happens at night for obvious reasons
 
rt67ghy said:
There are two types of pods we encounter in the marine tank: 1)amphipods 2) copepods.

Pods are crustaceans and look like little bugs. They're usually imported into our system via live rock/live sand/chaeto or other algae from someone else's tank. If given sufficient time and diatoms/cyanobacteria or algae to feed on they multiply and provide an additional and nutritional food source for your small fish which greatly benefits them.
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Isopods too.

Also, just to add some more info. If your system can handle the addition of dosing phytoplankton you'll see an explosion of small crustaceans as that is their number one food source in the wild.
 
good to see this as a sticky. i feel like a broken mp3 sometimes, repeating myself in the dragonet threads. seems like most of the new people on here want a mandy for their 5 gallon pico. facepalm.

these fish are amazing, and incredibly easy to keep, if you give them what they need (proper tank size and food). my girl, Mushu, is the hidden gem in my tank, floating in and out of view in that strange, ethereal way, that only dragonets can.

it has been immensely rewarding to see how far she has come, from a slightly skinny and shy new addition, to a plump and confident star resident.
 
I have a 90 with a 30 sump. And ive had my mandarin for a while. I have tons of pods it has been seeded with over 15,000 pods and my mandarin is one of the few that will eat other foods. Infact he has ate everything I have put in the tank to include pellets and flakes.
Now to my questions.
I am wanting to buy a male for her and I am worried that I will make it to much of a conpetition for food and they will end up fighting or starving. In your opinion could this work out or should I scratch this idea
 
She might kill the male. THese fish are amazingly placid and inoffensive---but if another mandy moves in where they feel food is getting short---it's deathmatch. 90 might be enough room. 15,000 is not a lot of pods against their consumption: they eat 2000 every couple of hours. Question is how much reproduction do they have in your fuge: if a huge ball of cheato, a lot of repro, they might make it, but you're still up against getting them to pair instead of one killing the other. An eggcrate divider might help, but since they travel the rockwork, this can be hard to set up firmly and effectively and if one can fit through the holes, another problem.
 
Sk8r said:
She might kill the male. THese fish are amazingly placid and inoffensive---but if another mandy moves in where they feel food is getting short---it's deathmatch. 90 might be enough room. 15,000 is not a lot of pods against their consumption: they eat 2000 every couple of hours. Question is how much reproduction do they have in your fuge: if a huge ball of cheato, a lot of repro, they might make it, but you're still up against getting them to pair instead of one killing the other. An eggcrate divider might help, but since they travel the rockwork, this can be hard to set up firmly and effectively and if one can fit through the holes, another problem.
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The 15,000 pods that were seeded had many months to repopulate before the mandarin was added.
 
And can I take it to the bank that a well set-up fuge with thriving population of pods will continually and automatically feed the DT? That is to say, the pods not only survive the trip through the return pump but do so on the regular?

Again, this is all assuming a thriving population of pods in the DT (120 gal) and the fuge (90 gal sump w/ as much dedicated to fuge as possible) prior to introducing a mandarin.

I have read that the pods survive the trip but it still seems amazing to me.
 
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Yes. I've seen even a started amphipod, many times their size, pop out of the return nozzle. They do make the round trip handily, and I have an Iwaki 100, with a gate valve reining it back: this is sort of like traveling through a Cuisinart. They have to travel up from the basement where my sump is located, through about 15 feet of hose and pipe.

This is a prime reason I don't use filter socks or the like. I figure goes-around will come-around again. They WILL breed in the tank rocks, wherever they go, but if you let a mandy near your 'breeding stock' they can cut down on the birth rate astonishingly fast. Some do put upside down strawberry boxes filled with rubble on their sandbed to protect them, sort of a fuge-in-the-DT operation, but a 20 gallon mature rock and moss fuge (or larger) is a great asset.
 
I got myself a tiny mandarin 3 months ago. I was prepared for the challenge though and did all the preparation work in advance.

I have 3 condo pods I rotate weekly and Paul B's feeder idea to give him live brine shrimp (I do this once or twice a week). Otherwise he roams around and eats pods.
I also lucked out in a sense that he eats frozen food

Here's a video of him eating from the feeder back in February;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FiqNu1pFv4&feature=youtu.be

And here he is today





 
flixxx said:
I got myself a tiny mandarin 3 months ago. I was prepared for the challenge though and did all the preparation work in advance.

I have 3 condo pods I rotate weekly and Paul B's feeder idea to give him live brine shrimp (I do this once or twice a week). Otherwise he roams around and eats pods.
I also lucked out in a sense that he eats frozen food

Here's a video of him eating from the feeder back in February;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FiqNu1pFv4&feature=youtu.be

And here he is today





Click to expand...
When you say rotate, what do you mean? Rotating to/from fuge? Separate tank?

Don't mean to hijack... But this seems like one of those experiences that leads to forum gold and I'm sure a lot of us would love to hear more about your 3 month process.

Handsome guy by the way!!
 
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