Few mandarin questions

[spscrackhead]

I know every fish has the abality to jump, but are mandarins known to jump? I am specifically worried about if I get a Pair and their chances of jumping surfing their dance. I have a shallow (12inch high) rimless tank.

I would like to have a pair if jumping is not an issue. Is introducing both at the same time the best procedure?

I intend to train them to eat prepared foods in a breeders net. Should they each have their own? Or should i have them in the same one.
Also, you keep them in the net untill they are eating prepared foods correct? You dont release them and catch whenever you feed. I know it seems silly i just wanted to make sure.
Just wondering what everyone thought. Thanks!

 

[Dashiki]

How big is the tank? At 12 high I'm assuming you don't have the dimensions to keep two and possibly even 1.

Even if they are trained to eat frozen they still need most of the diet to be copepods or they will not get the nutrients they need.

For a pair you should have a minimum 75gal and over 100 pounds of love rock alOng with a refugium.

 

[sponger0]

How big is the tank? At 12 high I'm assuming you don't have the dimensions to keep two and possibly even 1.

Even if they are trained to eat frozen they still need most of the diet to be copepods or they will not get the nutrients they need.

For a pair you should have a minimum 75gal and over 100 pounds of love rock alOng with a refugium.

+1 on all of this.

I would also assume your tank isnt big enough to assimilate a pod population big enough for 2.

Training these guys to eat isnt an easy task and without proper research I wouldnt suggest it.

 

[spscrackhead]

The tank is just shy of 120. It is a custom 4 foot by 4 foot cube only 12 high. It is also part of a very large system. I have done my research and I understand very well the diet of these fish. I dose phyto, zoo, and baby brine to the system already on a daily basis (I have my own cultures). I do not doubt that even if they do not accept prepared foods that their nutritional needs will not be met. I still want to train them on prepared foods.

My main concerns are that the tank is shallow and rimless with an open top and I would hate to find one on the floor. What are your thoughts? If the chance is too great then I will only get one. And can someone answer my questions about the breeders net in my previous post?

 

[alton]

Anytime you have n open tank you risk losing fish to jumping. I have never had one jump over into my over flow so they are not known as jumpers but try to catch one and they jump very high. I keep a mandarin in both my 29 and 40 gallon tanks with no problems for over two years. The trick is tank mates, in both tanks I have two jawfish in each. Since jawfish only eat what is close to them and there hole, the mandarins clean up everything else with no competition. So if the food lays there an hour before they get to it so be it.

 

[tmz]

I have a pair,male female, in an open 12inch deep tank ; they are not known to jump and show no such inclination. Two males may fight and then all bets are off.

 

[snorvich]

I have a pair,male female, in an open 12inch deep tank ; they are not known to jump and show no such inclination. Two males will fight and then all bets are off.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Curtispants]

I thought the mandarins were tank bred now and much easier to sustain? Was this a rumor I heard?

 

[JaneG]

Mine are eating well but some people have had bad experiences with them.

For the record, my female mandarin leaped straight from the tank during maintenance and I've heard it before. I'd get a lid to be safe.

 

[Lorenz725]

A lot of mandarins are tank bread but there are still a lot of wild caught ones out there. ORA breed there own and before they sell them they have them eating frozen food and pellets. But what a lot of people dont realize mandarins are a shy/passive fish and if you have other fish in your tank more then likely they will eat all the food before the mandarin ever gets a chance. From looking into and reading a lot about mandarins most of them die from lack of food. Though no one really knows how many pods they consume in a day it is not likely they will survive unless in a mature "bigger" tank with a fuge. Now saying all that I have read where people have had luck keeping them in smaller tanks and being able to get them to eat frozen and keeping them for years. I am no expert on mandarins and I would recommend people do there own research and decided if there set up is right for one.

 

[sponger0]

I thought the mandarins were tank bred now and much easier to sustain? Was this a rumor I heard?

Not rumor. Not all available to purchase are tank bred. ORA mandarins are raised on prepared foods...so yes the ones that survive will eat prepared foods. Is this a recommended diet? Im not so sure. Once they transport to a new tank, will they eat? Not necessarily.

I had a ORA target mandarin. At first he wouldnt eat anything. After some time training with a baby jar used as a diner he was doing fine. I did introduce bottles of pods in the tank. It built a very small population over the next 6 months. He would recognize when I fed the fish, food for him was coming.

Now I fast forward 6 months, I moved all my fish over to a bigger tank. What happened next? He refused to eat and perished. Im sharing my experience so you understand what happens when these guys transfer to a new tank or under high levels of stress.

Your under the same mis-conception I was under when buying an ORA. But once I got one I had a whole new view after searching on the internet. Befor considering mandarins, read a little more. My readings found a 50/50 chance of keeping them alive. It seemed to me to be a crap shoot. Roll of the dice if you may.

 

[Daddeo]

Just to add my $.02. I've kept a few mandarin's over the years and not one of them ate prepared food, even if they were "trained" to do so. The most I have kept at one time is two and unfortunately they were both male. In my 120 they fought constantly until I separated them. I know for fact they will jump when fighting/chasing each other, that is if you have two males. Of course, mileage varies with each fish and person keeping them. I would make sure you have a thriving, reproducing population of pods before introducing even one. They are a beautiful fish and very entertaining to watch, for the wife and I at least ;-).


I meant to add that sometimes you get lucky with mandarin's as with any live stock we like to keep in our glass boxes full of water. My first mandarin was put into the tank during cycle, no pods, and no knowledge of to properly keep one. He was a hardy little bigger and went on to live many years before the tank crashed.

 

[davocean]

That wasn't a very long period of time from what I see posted, and I don't see any follow ups on that since 2008.
That many in a 120g is disaster let alone multiple males, unless someone took great measures to make sure they had a constant supply of pods.
Mandarins don't have a rep of being jumpers, but all fish can.
I don't know many people that keep them in that shallow of a tank, so you might not get a lot of feedback in personal experience that meets this particular situation.
I think I would at least have a screen top.

 

[snorvich]

Having spent a LOT of time in the wild with mandarins photographing them in their natural habitat, I can assure you males WILL fight, especially in the presence of females, but even when not. The area that I habituated was about 40 yards square where the males rarely ran into other males except during the last light of day when they gathered for breeding purposes.


Of all the mandarins I have kept over the years, wild caught ones always ate frozen food albeit only when it happened to cross their path. Of the one pair of ORA mandarins that I tried, it was an abysmal failure. Of the wild caught ones, all were successful IF they were initially healthy.

 

[snorvich]

If you are curious, check out this.

 

[spscrackhead]

So I can gather the general concensious is that most likely no they will not jump. It is however possible and most likely during maintainace.

Now what about the breeder net question posed in the first post?

 

[davocean]

Personally I wouldn't waste my time w/ the breeder net or training to eat prep'd foods, that is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they need or normally eat, 1-3 pods per minute.
I stick w/ having enough LR/tank space and fuge that will provide the pods they need.
If I were retired or worked from home I suppose I could kill time by spot feeding many times through the day, but it's not practical for my situation.

 

[snorvich]

Personally I wouldn't waste my time w/ the breeder net or training to eat prep'd foods, that is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they need or normally eat, 1-3 pods per minute.
I stick w/ having enough LR/tank space and fuge that will provide the pods they need.
If I were retired or worked from home I suppose I could kill time by spot feeding many times through the day, but it's not practical for my situation.

I agree. They eat constantly and their metabolism reflects that.

 

[nonimmigrant]

Having spent a LOT of time in the wild with mandarins photographing them in their natural habitat, I can assure you males WILL fight, especially in the presence of females, but even when not. The area that I habituated was about 40 yards square where the males rarely ran into other males except during the last light of day when they gathered for breeding purposes.


Of all the mandarins I have kept over the years, wild caught ones always ate frozen food albeit only when it happened to cross their path. Of the one pair of ORA mandarins that I tried, it was an abysmal failure. Of the wild caught ones, all were successful IF they were initially healthy.

+1 with Steve on males fighting - have seen it before many times. Now on jumping, let me put it this way: Mandarins jumping is as likely as a 4'11" white guy being able to dunk a ball...

In my experience, my mandarins do now take mysis if it's super close to them and not moving, but I have never, in 5 years with these two, ever purposefully targeted food for them. They do exactly what my 3 DF pipes do : hunt their own food amongst the myriad of holes / surfaces on my rocks. My two were wild caught, started eating upon intro in to the DT and they are fatties today.

 

[tmz]

I qt'd my wild caught 14.99 each variety in small tanks(10 gallon) used for peventative ich treatment via tank transfer,. I fed them frozen and gel pack cyclopeeze and then mysis, brine and bloodworm. They quickly developed and appetite for all of it. They were alone in those tanks and ate heartily. I placed them in a 2 foot by 4 foot 12 inch deep 60 gallon grow out tank which has a 2 inch sand bed and some live rock. Lots of natural pods and some flatworms in there. Mainly I wanted them to help with the flatworms. They jet out when I feed and compete readily with their tank mates: a pair of ocellaris , a bangai cardinal and a six line wrasse for the frozen foods and even the occasional flake feeding I do.

I've never seen two males not fight after a period of a few weeks but have read reports from some claiming their ok in larger tanks thus I used the word may instead of will. I think the probablility for aggression is quite high though.