How will I know I'm ready for a mandarin?

[Coelli]

My dream fish is a blue mandarin, so I'm trying to make sure I can support one.

I have a 65g that was a recent upgrade from a 29g. Most of my live rock came over, so there are tons of pods after only a few weeks (not near enough, I know). I built a foam/rock wall so I'd not only have more space for coral but also more places for pods to grow and hide in addition to the live rock structures on the sand. I've attached a few bunches of dragon's tongue macro to my overflow to help use that space too. I have about 9g of fuge in the sump that's fed from my return and flows back into the return chamber with an eye to shooting pod babies back up to the display. The fuge is about 1/3 filled so far with red gracilaria and is already crawling with pods. I also have some non-AE flatworms and am not using FW exit unless they become a problem. I plan to occasionally re-seed the DT and fuge with new pods.

I will not add any other fish that might compete with the mandarin for food.

At what point will I know that the tank can support a mandarin, if at all? When I can no longer see the tank through the pods on the glass?

Also, how do you QT a mandarin...? Just add pods to the QT for those weeks?

Thanks!

 

[Betta132]

6 months to a year is generally considered to be enough aging time.
Most people don't usually QT mandies, from what I've seen. You just have to pick a healthy one at the store, or keep it in a QT for just a couple of days. They're pretty resistant to ich, I believe.

 

[Coelli]

Thanks Betta. I'll see where I'm at in 6 months and go from there. I know this isn't a short-term wait.

 

[MondoBongo]

it sounds like you've got a good setup going. i assume you're running some kind of sand, not bare bottom?

how long ago was your upgrade from your 29? how much additional new rock did you add to the tank, and was it dry rock or live rock?

6 months is a certainly a healthy timeline to ensure the better chances of success, but it could be variable depending on the other particular details of your setup. since yours was an upgrade/migration you have the benefit of having things already established.

so while 6 months would be ideal, if you're two or three months post-upgrade, i would start keeping an eye out. sometimes it takes a little while to find a good, healthy dragonet specimen. so no harm in starting your search a little sooner. i'd probably be looking on the smaller side, so that he/she can grow in to your tank.

it's also never a bad idea to plan on some supplemental feeding strategies as well. i like to use a multi-pronged approach with my girly. so that even though i'm confident the pods in the tank could sustain her indefinitely on their own, i still like to make sure a couple times a week i give her some other stuff to nibble on.

the PaulB style baby brine feeders are a favorite of mine. they're low maintenance, and make for a great snacking station for all in the tank, quite a clever design. here is the original thread:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2113800&highlight=feeding+station

in addition to this you can culture/buy white worms. i haven't gotten around to these yet, but others swear by them. i will sometimes feed live black worms as well, but these are more a rare treat. they don't like long in saltwater (we're talking seconds) so they tend to create a high waste to food ratio if not eaten immediately.

on the frozen side, Nutramar Ova and Cyclop-eeze are staples for me. i have also noticed increased interest and a more vigorous feeding response from her when i let the food soak in Selcon. this is across the board for all frozen foods i've tried her on. so in addition to adding good vitamins, it also helps to promote interest.

QT can be a tricky proposition with these guys for a couple reasons.

they don't tolerate many medications, especially copper, well. obviously their food source (pods) doesn't tolerate copper at all, since it is specifically designed as a way to kill invertebrates.

another consideration is that often these fish come in pretty undernourished.

see my girly here, in the acclimation box. she was feeding well at the LFS, and was there for almost two months when i brought her home. she was in good condition relatively speaking to a lot of other dragonets i have seen, however still a long way from ideal

skinny girl:

so in many cases it is a high priority to get them feeding as soon as possible.

this is her a few months ago, as you can see, she is now a plump little technicolor sausage:

you could potentially use a tank transfer method on these guys, but again, feeding can be the issue there. i'm not all that familiar with TTM myself, so perhaps someone else will chime in with the specifics of using is for dragonets.

as Betta mentioned, they are less prone to being infected with ich that many other types of fish. however less prone does not mean immune. so this becomes a calculated risk.

i certainly wouldn't advocate for anyone to skip out on QT protocol as a blanket statement. there are some exceptions, like dragonets however, that require you to assess how risk averse you are with your tank.

my mandy was the only thing i did not QT. it was a calculated risk, and it turned out well. this is the path most people seem take with these guys, due to the difficulty in QTing them in a meaningful way.

another part of mitigating that risk is observing, and trying to make the best choice as far as which fish you end up with. you want one who is not dangerously thing. shouldn't have a sunken stomach, shouldn't have visible sharp lines running down their side. they should be active. constantly in the process of floating around, and pecking at something every couple of seconds (5 to 15 seconds give or take). the side fins should be fluttering nicely most of the time, even when the fish is resting, with only occasional breaks. color should be rich and vibrant, and they should have full use of their body, including down to the tail. make sure to observe no paralysis in the tail section.

 

[Coelli]

Thanks so much MongoBongo, that's excellent advice!

The upgrade was about 6 weeks ago, though the bulk of the rock and livestock were only moved over 3 weeks ago (the pods started before then, I had a bloom after adding a few small pieces of rock from the old tank). I only have about 30# of LR in the rock structures on the sand, but another 25# or so incorporated into the rock wall plus all of the nooks and crannies in the wall and behind it (it's a lot of area and the foam is porous - it's attached with silicone, but lots of places pods could get in). I have a 1-1.5" coarse sandbed. The fuge has at least another 15# of LR plus the gracilaria, which I intend to fill the fuge with and may eventually remove some of the rock in favor of the macro.

Wonder if adding nylon bath scrubbies to the return chamber might add more pod propagation space without becoming a detritus trap? I could shake them out in the DT occasionally. Worth a thought and maybe a try.

I'll keep an eye out for a healthy mandy, I do see them occasionally but will still probably wait the 6 months before introducing one. I'll keep an eye out for a used mandy from a trusted tank too, there are a lot of reefers in Los Angeles and people break tanks down all the time. That might be an even better route than buying one from a LFS. I should ask my LFS if ORA is still producing them - not because I want to feed frozen, but I'd feel better about a captive bred mandy anyway...

On the other hand, I'm sure as a fellow rescuer you can understand my nagging compulsion to try to rescue a mandy from an LFS rather than it being sold to someone who thinks it's pretty and takes it home to their new nano without knowing what they're doing.

 

[Coelli]

Also - your mandy is gorgeous!!

 

[MondoBongo]

Thanks so much MongoBongo, that's excellent advice!

The upgrade was about 6 weeks ago, though the bulk of the rock and livestock were only moved over 3 weeks ago (the pods started before then, I had a bloom after adding a few small pieces of rock from the old tank). I only have about 30# of LR in the rock structures on the sand, but another 25# or so incorporated into the rock wall plus all of the nooks and crannies in the wall and behind it (it's a lot of area and the foam is porous - it's attached with silicone, but lots of places pods could get in). I have a 1-1.5" coarse sandbed. The fuge has at least another 15# of LR plus the gracilaria, which I intend to fill the fuge with and may eventually remove some of the rock in favor of the macro.

Wonder if adding nylon bath scrubbies to the return chamber might add more pod propagation space without becoming a detritus trap? I could shake them out in the DT occasionally. Worth a thought and maybe a try.

those scrubbies certainly don't hurt. are you familiar with "pod condos" or "pod piles" as well? similar concept where you get small pieces of rock rubble and either make little piles in various places, sump/fuge/return/hidden area in the main tank, or i've seen some people use mesh or even gutter guard to group the little pieces of rubble together. then this gives sort of an in-tank "fuge" spot, since no one can get inside the piles to eat them.

it's not a bad technique because it is versatile. you can make them as large or as small as you need to, and have as many, or as few as you have room for.

breeding pods and phyto is kind of fun too if you have the space. it's relatively simple and cheap to get started, and requires relatively little work to maintain external cultures. i have my office/spare room at home filled with old pretzel containers and soda bottles bubbling away with various concoctions.

I'll keep an eye out for a healthy mandy, I do see them occasionally but will still probably wait the 6 months before introducing one. I'll keep an eye out for a used mandy from a trusted tank too, there are a lot of reefers in Los Angeles and people break tanks down all the time. That might be an even better route than buying one from a LFS. I should ask my LFS if ORA is still producing them - not because I want to feed frozen, but I'd feel better about a captive bred mandy anyway...

as far as i know ORA hasn't bred any of their CB mandys for quite some time. this is one of those things that i would love to try my hand at some time. maybe down the road i will get a chance.

On the other hand, I'm sure as a fellow rescuer you can understand my nagging compulsion to try to rescue a mandy from an LFS rather than it being sold to someone who thinks it's pretty and takes it home to their new nano without knowing what they're doing.

100%

the ethics of this hobby are something i struggle with daily. i always wonder if it is best to buy that fish from the LFS before someone else does, or does doing that fuel the supply chain more? it's one of my biggest ongoing moral dilemmas about this as a past time.

Also - your mandy is gorgeous!!

thanks!

good luck with your mandy. it sounds like you're off to an excellent start.

 

[ca1ore]

If you have the space a cryptic zone/RDSB can be a very effective way of growing a sustainable pod population. I have a 20 hanging off my sump that is a veritable cloud of them - should have gone bigger!

 

[Stevenliu9]

I agree with waiting longer, and also, if you can, train the mandi to eat from feeding stations. Just to put in perspective- I know a friend's mandarin in an established 120 G still starving to death without supplemental feeding.

 

[ca1ore]

I have a mandarin in my 265 (plus extras) that has maintained a good weight for two years without eating any of the foods I give to the other fish (at least I have not seen it eat anything so I assume it doesn't), however, it spends its entire day poking around the rocks eating pods. My tank appears to support a sizable population of the things, because I see them in my sump, frag tank, and RDSB in large numbers. I think that is the only surefire way of keeping one, so when you see lots and lots of pods, your tank is ready for one.

 

[cody6766]

To try to add more in-tank fuges, I piled up some chunky rubble so that there are some good spaces between the rocks. I then sprinkled a few lbs of crushed coral among the rock structures and piled it up behind them. I've noticed that my mandarin spends a lot of time in the crushed coral piles compared to other areas in the tank.

I don't know if this is truly effective, but it seems to work. When I was snorkeling in the Caribbean, I noticed layers and layers of life in rubble piles that surprised me. I though there would be life in them, but as i moved rocks and pebbles aside I found more and more little animals. I'm hoping that these piles in my tank mimic this to some degree. I also keep a bunch of macro in my fuge and seed pods from time to time. It might be excessive, but $20 on pods now and again is a drop in the bucket in this hobby.

 

[bpcardona]

+1 on the brine shrimp feeder. I have a larger system and allowed the pod population to grow over the course of two years. I recently added my dragonets and intend on building the hatchery and feed this week. The materials have been purchased just need time. Best of luck!

 

[cody6766]

I forgot to mention, I also feed the tank phyto- and zooplankton. I'm sure that provides a little more food to feed growing pods.

 

[m0nkie]

hey you are not too far away from me. I have a male mandarin that's been in my tank for 6+ months.. very healthy and round. eats pod only though. I'm getting rid of him because I'm switching tanks. New tank won't have the pods to support him. If you are interested, I'll give him to you for free. if not, I'll be taking him back to LFS. Maybe I'll buy him back in a few months if he's still there.. pm me for detail if you want it

 

[Coelli]

I thought I'd resurrect this thread with an update. Last May, a few months after starting this thread, I picked up a female green mandarin from Vivid. She was in a tank on the floor and didn't look as thin as she turned out to be. I put her in my refugium, but she was so stressed and malnourished she only lasted 4 days. She was quite lethargic and I'm not sure she even had a chance.

About a week later I was at another store that has a fairly large copper-treated system and a high turnover rate on fish. They had a couple of mandarins in the open-topped compartments. One of them, a male, was pretty spunky and kept sticking his head up along the side like he wanted out. I asked them to feed him some frozen, but he ignored it. They said he'd been there for at least a week. I figured if he still had that much energy after a week I'd take a chance on him.

He settled right into my tank like he'd always lived there. A few weeks later I noticed him eating mysis! I now make an effort to make sure he gets some every day (although there are still plenty of pods in the tank). I feel like I hit the mandarin lottery with this guy. If the pumps are off, he'll swim up and grab pieces of mysis out of the water column. I've seen him steal it from palythoas and acans. At this point he recognizes the turkey baster and will wait for the food to come out of it. He is such a pleasure to watch swim around the tank, and 6 months in he's getting quite fat. I'm confident he's doing so well and glad I took the chance with him.

I'm cycling a 30g display fuge now to further ensure he'll have a good food supply. Thanks for all the advice and hope you enjoyed the update. Here's a terrible pic from about a month ago as he cruised by the yasha/shrimp burrow.

Edit: One more pic. Even though the tank is only 65 gallons, you can see that there is a pretty vast amount of surface area for hunting and places for pods to hide and reproduce for a tank that size. When I built it, that was one of the goals.

 

[snorvich]

I have a mandarin in my 265 (plus extras) that has maintained a good weight for two years without eating any of the foods I give to the other fish (at least I have not seen it eat anything so I assume it doesn't), however, it spends its entire day poking around the rocks eating pods. My tank appears to support a sizable population of the things, because I see them in my sump, frag tank, and RDSB in large numbers. I think that is the only surefire way of keeping one, so when you see lots and lots of pods, your tank is ready for one.

Good advice.