Keeping Mandarin gobies

S

Swatchguy

New member
Hi All, I'm beginning my research on Mandarin Gobies. Any info on Mandarians or cultivating copepods would be appreciated. I know they're difficult but I'd like to be properly prepared before committing.
Thanks.... Guess I should add that I've had a BioCube 29 for over a year and have been
successful with a reef. I'm running an ato and a skimmer. Nitrates and phosphates are near 0 and ph is 8.2-8.4. I have a 1" sand bed and I've put some copepods in the right chamber, which has rubble in the bottom. Hoping for some reproduction.
Thanks again..
 
First of all, mandarins are not gobies, they are dragonnets. If you want to try one in your size tank, you will need a refugium to cultivate copepods; you cannot possibly keep up your copepod level with commercially cultivated copepods.

Normally you would need a tank size of about 75 gallons with about that many lbs of live rock that has matured for about a year.
 
I got a Psychedelic Mandarin only after I switched from a 29 gallon to a 120 gallon, AND after I had established a refugium and was sure I had copius copepods.

I had that Mandarin for about eight years and it survived some incredible crashes that wiped out fish that are generally listed as hardy. (While gone for a week my wife accidentally unplugged the heater and the tank temp was in the high 60's for several days. It even killed off my hair algae, but the Mandarin and a False Percula Clown survived!

I lost the Mandarin while dealing with a sudden Cyano outbreak. I tried the commercial Cyano killer, which slowed, but did not eliminate, the Cyano. I did the recommended two rounds of treatment and the day after the second treatment found my Mandarin swimming in circles at the surface on its side.

I really don't know if it was the Cyano depleting oxygen or the treatment that was the fatal cause. I do know that my copepod population had always been plentiful, even with the Mandarin. It was suddenly near zilch. Again, I don't know if it was the Cyano or the treatment, or maybe even something else.

In my experience with this one individual, Mandarins are fairly easy to keep and hardy IF and ONLY IF you have plentiful food source available for them to hunt. They are wonderful fish (reminded me of humming birds) but mine never acted like it noticed any food I added.

One more factor: Over those eight years I ended up adding some aggressive fish, some of which I actually took back because they were more aggressive than I anticipated. None of them ever seemed to even notice the Mandarin. They would attack all the other fish, shrimp, crabs, and even powerheads, but never acknowledged the Mandarin. I may have just been lucky in this.
 
I added a Mandarin Dragonet to my 75 gal about 4 months after setting it up. The tank was a second hand deal and came with live rock and a good sand bed. Don't have a refugium but I did add more live rock from another used tank I purchased. He has grown considerably and fattened up nicely in the year since he's been in the tank. Great fish, just tools around searching for food all day and for some time after the main lights go out. They seem to enjoy the dusk time for hunting especially. The odd time I've seen him pick up a chunk of cyclopeeze but that's rare and I've also seen him spit it out again. Definitely not a good idea to try and rely on artificial food, the must have live pods to survive. He did have several episodes of losing his colour and once when I was away, my daughter thought he was a goner since he went completely pale. But, the little guy got through that and it's like nothing ever happened.
As per the info from DNickell, other fish do not bother Mandarins. I believe it's due to some coating they have that makes them extremely distasteful. I have a fairly territorial Blue Devil Damselfish that has taken bits of fin out of a number of my other fish, but he won't touch the Mandarin. The odd time he's tried to nudge the Mandarin out of his lair, but you can tell as soon as he touches him, that something about the Mandarin's skin is repulsive to the Damsel.
Make sure you have a good supply of well established live rock and you should be alright. You'll need a refugium though if the tank is smaller than say 50 gals and insufficient live rock.
 
before you buy your mandarin, have your store feed it and see if it at least will take live brine shrimp. I had mine in 55G and it ate all frozen foods and whatever else it found in the rocks and was nice and fat, however i didn't kow that these guys jump and it happened. they can jump out of your tank, so have it covered.
 
OR...just go ahead and set up a pod culture and stop listening to the naysayers... Why on earth can't a person use cultured pods for this? I have 400+ dollars into my pod tanks and now have 3 pod only tanks. I added pods to the tank this mandarin is living in while cycling. It sat there cycling for 3 months without any fish in it to eat the copepods. I watched that group of pods increase and crawl all over the plants. I added pods to my 5 gallon tank at least 4 times and since have set up 2 more 10 gallon tanks. It's all about time, money and research.

You can get 4 bottles of pods from livecopods for 99 dollars right now that includes shipping. They have other deals and a few types. There are place son Ebay that are trustworthy to get pods from. Also, bringing in macro from various sources increases the types of pods that come in. Buying professional algae paste will also increase the likelihood of having a good pod culture.

I add pods to my display tank every single day. I also add cycopleeze and baby brine shrimp daily too.

Think of it this way.. If you spent 15 per week on feeding the fish, that would be 780 per year. Is that extravagant? Maybe. But it's the most beautiful fish I've ever seen!

Suzi
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12979076#post12979076 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by snorvich
First of all, mandarins are not gobies, they are dragonnets. If you want to try one in your size tank, you will need a refugium to cultivate copepods; you cannot possibly keep up your copepod level with commercially cultivated copepods.

Normally you would need a tank size of about 75 gallons with about that many lbs of live rock that has matured for about a year.
Click to expand...

What I said what "commercially cultivated" copepods. Sure if you have a copepod culturing facility you are good to go. 99.9% of aquarists do not have copepod culturing tanks.
 
I've chosen to culture them in tanks because I love the way the tanks look with the plants and rocks and I like studying the micro fauna. But culturing copepods can be done successfully in nothing more than jars on a window sill.

Suzi
 
i got my Psychedelic Mandarin several years ago - he is very happy in my 60g cube, but that tank has been up and running since 1992. there is little stuff everywhere for him. he also eats spectrum pellets, frozen mysis and brine. the key, i think, is to have a well established hame for him to go to. if the tank is either too small or not old enough, he'll probably starve before he learns to accept prepared foods. yes you can go the pod farm approach, but it seems like a real p.i.b. to me
 
i got my Psychedelic Mandarin several years ago - he is very happy in my 60g cube, but that tank has been up and running since 1992. there is little stuff everywhere for him. he also eats spectrum pellets, frozen mysis and brine. the key, i think, is to have a well established home for him to go to. if the tank is either too small or not old enough, he'll probably starve before he learns to accept prepared foods. yes you can go the pod farm approach, but it seems like a real p.i.b. to me
 
I guess it's all in the perspective. It's just as much fun to watch the planted pod tanks as it is to watch the other tanks. It also feels really good to accomplish something that is more worthwhile than just sitting around nights and watching tv.

Suzi
 
Thank you so much for that article! I had already put out a couple requests for a female, since they are hard to come by. But I had no idea what it would take to raise any if I end up with a spawning pair.
 
Well Andy, I'm already locked into increasing my copepod supplies and buying more and more because I have both a scooter and a mandarin. Not to mention the fact that my seahorses eat copepods all day long too.

I'll just keep adding new plants, small tanks and copepods until I'm sure I have more than enough. Today I set up 12 pounds of live rock rubble that was shipped to me. It's very porous but I am working on the assumption it's only base rock. I didn't ask many questions and it came dry. So I have it in a 5 gallon bucket with an airstone and I'll use all the change water from the various tanks to change out the water daily so the used water will start to supply ammonia for cycling. I'll drag out this cycling for a long while so that I can add copepods and make sure the ammonia never gets too high. Then I'll transfer these little pieces of rubble into the tank over time making a rock pile in the seahorse/draggonette tank for copepod breeding.

Anyway, I've got it all well thought out.

Interestingly enough, I put a little flake food in the tank tonight because I think it's possible my little algae blenny fish doesn't know he's supposed to be eating sinking algae pellets. Sure enough he went nuts over the flake food. Well he wasn't the only one. The seahorses followed it all over the tank and I think one of the horses sampled a small amount. The mandarin and scooter followed it around and examined it as it settled in the plants. I think it's possible that overtime I will get these critters on a variety of foods. In the meantime, I have a couple of peppermints in there to clean up leftovers. I'll do extra water changing so that I can experiment with different frozen foods. I have some bloodworms in the freezer too. So I think I may start to experiment with that too.

Suzi
 
I have a mandarin in my 29g long and i've had him for about a month. My tank has about 2" of crushed coral for a substrate and about 20ish pounds of TLR and FLR. My tanks been going for almost 7 months.

I raise amphipods in my BW filter and dump them in every couple of days. I also have a water bottle 'fuge' that I keep in my display. It just has some live sand, a couple tiny pieces of LR, and some algae. Poke a couple holes in the top and give it a couple weeks and you'll be in business.

IMG_6265.jpg


Some good tips to keep a mandarin in a small tank:

- Get one very small and very fat. Its hard to find ones eating well in LFS but keep track of how big he is when you get it. If you notice him getting thin in a couple days, return him to the LFS ASAP!

- Watch him for about 5 minutes every day. He should nip at something every 10 seconds. If you notice he isn't, that's a good indicator that your pod supply isn't up to snuff.

- Experiment with frozen foods. I find that my mandarin will eat tiny mysis (Seahorse size) as long as its sitting on a rock or on the ground and not floating in the air. Also play around with amphlipods and tube worms. Contrary to popular belief, they will eat almost anything... just as long as its alive.

- All mandarins are different. Just because you have a bad experience with one doesn't mean you should give up hope.
 
I have a nice fat single mandy in a 54g display with 75 lbs rock spread out between that and a 20g fuge, and she has also learned to eat frozen---but they won't, if they're starving. Their food reflex once turned off just does not turn on except for their habitual live food. Miss Greedy-guts just wanted frozen dessert one day, and that after about a year and a half in my tank.
They are pretty hardy, rarely get parasites, and if you can keep them fed they're a joy to have around. Do NOT plan to have 2 unless they arrive together---they will fight; and I would say a 20g fuge just about supports one.
 
The mandarin in my 75g display with a 29g sump/fuge is well supported by the 110 pounds of rock in the display and 10 pounds of rubble in the sump. However, he loves Formula 1 and 2 pellets. Melev has had good success with the pellets with 2 of his mandarins as well. Check out this...http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html
 
I had a female mandarin in a 32gallon finnex m tank (the kind with 20 gallons of display, and maybe a 2.5gallon refugium).

I would never have set it up that way, but the mandarin came with the tank, and had already lived like that for 1-2 years, and did fine for me until a power outage killed all the fish in the tank.

I think the refugium is a must, with macro to "host" (provide a surface) for all the pods. My little mandarin stayed pretty fat and happy, always picking at the rocks every 5 seconds.

There are many techniques out there to train mandarins to eat frozen, and I would do that first, just in case you end up with a problem on the copepod side.
 
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