hmm.. 2 mandarins have died in my tank. any ideas?

Young Reefer 03

New member
the first one died over night, idk why. could it have been somethng with it being in the bag for about 4 hrs, and when i drip acclimated it an ammonia rise? the next morning i found it on its side. :(

the second one lived through 2 nights, but the next morning it was totally gone. no dead body, no alive body. my only suspect for that one was my green star, but my star always hangs out deep in the middle of my rock in the back corner of my tank. aso i cant immagine my star ate the whole mandarin, unless it had some blue legged crab help.

i know my pod population is up cause they are always on my sand at night,and when i turn my chaeto i see them in there too.
am i gonna have to ditch my star if i want a mandarin
 
Was it a green brittle star? Those are supposedly fish killers. Mandarins are slow-movers too. Hopefully someone that knows more than me will chime in.
 
What are your tank parameters? If you have a good colony of pods...as long as water conditions are good there should have been no problem. That's really weird. I don't think being in the bag for four hours had anything to do with it as long as it wasn't left in a hot car or so ething like that.
 
went to a party, and it sat inside the house in an insulated box. yes its a green brittle star thats why it's my victim at the moment lol. for parameters i honestly cant tell you the last time i tested, but i do weekly 10% changes. ill test them tonight :p
 
Yeah man I mean something was either wrong with the Mandarins to begin with or your tank is having an issue. Leaving the box out on the counter shouldn't have been a problem unless your friends were tossing it around or something ha. Post numbers when ya get the chance
 
just the common tests.
Salinity - 1.025 ( refracto )
all other tests were done with API
pH- 8.4
KH- 8
Ca- about 500
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 0 ( chaeto hiding any nitrates that may be there? )
well thermometer says 86, but its at the top by the lights. does that effect anything? i think i will try to buy a new thermometer and try to verify that tomorrow.

water seems fine to me, aside from temp. but i kinda dont beleive that thing..
 
Numbers seem ok but the temp is pretty darn high. Should never ever go over 84 for an extended period of time. How long do you keep your lights on? What other animals are in your tanks? Very odd I suspect the temp. Check it again with the thermometer half way down the water column. Let me know how ya make out
 
Green Mandarins are often captured with questionable techniques. Then they are notoriously bad shippers... You can be certain they hadn't eaten anything for at least a week (often more) when you got them. If their internal organs had start to shut down from storage and shipping starvation, they were pretty doomed before you ever got them...

That is why I buy my mandarins locally, only after seeing them feeding pn live foods in the LFS tank for at least a week...

JME.

LL
 
i got both of the 2 mandarins from LFSs. idk how to ask them to feed a fish before buy it lol.. it just seems emberrassing to me haha. well its good to know that about the internal organs, and it not being my fault for the first one. the second mandarin dissapeared without leaving a trace though.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15481711#post15481711 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Young Reefer 03
i got both of the 2 mandarins from LFSs. idk how to ask them to feed a fish before buy it lol.. it just seems emberrassing to me haha. well its good to know that about the internal organs, and it not being my fault for the first one. the second mandarin dissapeared without leaving a trace though.

It's really easy to ask them a LFS - "Hi, I'm interested in the xxx fish...can you feed it so I can watch it?"

In the case of a mandarin, you can just observe that it has LR in the holding tank and it's hunting the LR and tagging pods. A mandarin's tank in the LFS should be supplemented with live pods. Ask the LFS what kind of live pods they have been using...if you get a blank stare, you know the fish has probably been starving.

Had the mandarin been in the LFS for several days (QT), or was it in the door, out the door from being received from the wholesaler? The LFS I use will not sell fish until they have been in their tanks for a week and are observed eating... The mandarins are provided Arctic Pods.

The second one could have died and been carried to a hidden buffet by your CUC... :eek:

I would agree that the green star is a suspect, especially if the Mandarin were small specimens. Large, gnarly crabs are also suspect if you see any chewed up looking fins or tails.

Good luck later on...

LL
 
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the first mandarin was from a 50% off sale, so im guessing in and out, but the sedond was there for about a week they said. i guess ill just hold off on mandarin until i get a bigger tank. maybe then my green star will not be able to get a mandarin. my dad has a green brittle ( lost like half of 3 legs to his carpet anemone lol ) and a mandarin in his 100, but i guess a 55 is too small. as for crabs i only have blue legs. probably need to go spend about $50 and restock all of my CUC lol..
 
Mandarins eat a lot. You might reconsider that fish unless you plan on stocking your tank all the time with pods as those suckers can wipe out the pod population in your 55 gallon in a short period of time. Also, who knows how long the fish had gone without eating prior to you getting it.

But, I am not totally against keeping Mandarins in a smaller tank. If you can get them to go after frozen foods, they can thrive in any size tank. They are slow movers, so spot feeding my mandarin was my method while I had him.
 
thanks for the link magellan! :)

pike, i only really considered getting a mandarin when i saw pods all over my sand at night. im kindove thinking both of the fish had gone a while with out eating when i got them.
 
Still, in a 55, I'd probably supplement the pods with tiggerpods or arcticpods once a month. Mardarins and wrasses are pod hogs!!!
 
One thing I have found that seems to be a link to mandarins doing good in 55 to 75 gallon tanks is that the larger the number of corals you have in it the better the mandarins seem to do?It seems like the pods live in,up under and all around corals.I do not know if they gain more than cover out of the relationship or if they find food there but my frags are usually crawling with pods.For that reason I usually try to get new aquarium keepers that want a mandarin in there system to try and get some good corals that have a lot of cover in there tanks and that it be at least 10 months to a year older in age before getting one.
As for them being bad shippers I can not totally agree,I do not have very many problems with mandarins at shipping time,I can not speak for everyone but I have tons of other fish that do not ship half as well as mandarins.
I have seen a trend of people coming in and telling me they found a mandarin from a shop that is "eating" frozen food and pellets and that he will be great in there Nano tank. I have only seen about 6 or 7 that would eat prepared foods in about 5 years,that is a TINY number compared to all I have been around.If they say he is eating then I would surely ask to see it eat before tossing him into a nano and maybe his death.Luckilly reef nutrition makes some products that they can and will eat if you give them a little time and practice at doing so,I have also found that they will eat new life spectrum thera-a and new life marine formula pellets.I have seen a couple that people have trained to eat the small pellets .Most responsible lfs and pet stores ask a lot of questions about the persons tank that wants a mandarin before just bagging him up and selling them,or I hope they do!
Scott T
 
cmc, i planned on supplementing pods about once a month, or so but sadly they didnt even make it to a month. :(

oddballs, what you said about more corals, more pods makes sense. for somereason my sebae anemone was on my sand and pushed up against the front glass for a week or two and during that time i saw abunch of pods living under it.
with all of that great info i really want to visit your store lol, maybe one of these wekend we can take a 2hr drive :)

as far as providing food for my mandarins, i can tthink of why they would starve. i ave about 80 pounds, of liverock, an emperor 400 modded into a fuge with 2 balls of chaeto, and the tank is almost 3 years old. i bought it used, and the previous owner had it for 2 years, i bought it back in october. more corals wont hurt ;)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15481542#post15481542 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lightsluvr
Green Mandarins are often captured with questionable techniques. Then they are notoriously bad shippers... You can be certain they hadn't eaten anything for at least a week (often more) when you got them. If their internal organs had start to shut down from storage and shipping starvation, they were pretty doomed before you ever got them...

That is why I buy my mandarins locally, only after seeing them feeding pn live foods in the LFS tank for at least a week...

JME.

LL

While they are not so great of shippers the capture practice hasn't changed in years (decades) and is applied to nearly all in the genus. No drugs are used (CN use on them is just a myth) as they have the ability to "clam up" and couple with their thick slime coat, drugs just don't work on them.

The vast majority in the genus are captured using a mini spear gun through the back dorsal fin. This wound heals in a matter of a couple weeks and most never even get to see the wound.

Starvation is your biggest hurdle with them.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15505673#post15505673 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Starvation is your biggest hurdle with them.
Indeed. They seem to have an endless appetite...
 
They sure do. Like Lightsluvr hinted at, they don't usually get to eat much in the CoC (chain of custody). They could be in the exporters tanks for a week or two, then wholesalers for a week or two and neither are a great place for such a fish (little to zero food). IME it only takes a couple weeks until they just don't come back. Sad thing is, they can starve for months before dying.
 
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