Keeping Mandarin gobies

[suzimcmullen]

Well actually, that's why I have so many different copepod tanks. Some people do jars in window sills and experiment with different foods. It should be pretty easy to make sure at least one or more of them are fully stocked. But just to be on the safe side I ordered in another 100 dollars worth last night. When they get in here in a few days I'll divide the 8 bags between all the tanks.

Suzi

 

[IridescentLily]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12992008#post12992008 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NirvanaFan
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

Oh wow, that is such a great idea. I love the chubby-cheeked pic at the end, it's perfect. That Mr Levenson is a genius indeed.

 

[imafishboy]

i had a mandarin in my 29 g with 20g refugium. but my mandarin ate everything. flake, frozen brine, mysis, live brine. anything you can name. and i had a lot of pods. so maybe you'll get lucky like me but if not, you should get rid of him =]

 

[seacreatures11335]

Most Mandarins start off eating only pods, as the become aclimated to aquarium life they (hopefully) will try frozen foods and they are much easier from there. My latest mandarin eats pellets from New Life Spectrum Thera A anywhere between 5 and 10 at one feeding. The spotted mandarins have been the easiest for me.

 

[suzimcmullen]

I'm buying small pellet type foods to try in a mandarin type feeder like seen on Melves sight. But I really don't care one way or the other if they learn to eat pods. Culturing pods is really easy to do. It's really just a matter of learning about the environment they like and giving it to them. Time is the other factor. I must be doing ok so far because both the scooter blenny and the mandarin are picking off the floor, walls, rocks and plants all day and all evening long. The seahorses are also picking pods off these things too. So far there doesn't seem to be any sign of a slow down in the #'s I'm getting from my oldest pod tank. But I'll continue to buy and add more pods to all my tanks until I'm sure I am set forever.

Suzi

 

[rdnyva]

Suzi, how do you capture the pods to transfer them from the culturing tank to the display. One obvious way is to move a piece of liverock bwtween the two tanks, but I'm talking about capturing a massive amount and just dumping them in the display. Is this possible?

 

[suzimcmullen]

In my one tank that has the most pods in it I just use a turkey baster. I lightly run it along the tops of the rocks and the walls and I collect hundreds at a time. The only thing is, I haven't learned a way to do it without transferring quite a bit of detritus to the other tank as well. The only good thing is, the other tank has a nice filter on it that collects most of the loose and fine detritus back up into the filter. So I've had to change the filter weekly. The frustrating thing is, that when I change the filter I see that it's absolutely crawling with life. So far I have been unwilling to throw this away. So I'm putting these used filters into my 10 gallon tanks that I'm in the process of building up a culture.

The last few weeks I have been doing something else though. I have 2 fish tanks where the fish don't seem to care about the pods. I have never seen them picking on the rocks or the glass. In the mornings when I turn on the lights these walls are just crawling with pods. So I bought some dishwashing scrubbers that have never had any soap on them. I cut them into the shape of a fish so my family and I would never mix them up with the kitchen pads. I take these pads and swipe the walls with them and then swish them into a container with a small amount of tank water. Then I hold up to the light and watch them jumping around. So far this is working quite well. I figure I'll do it for a few weeks and then stop so that the tanks can repopulate themselves for a few months.

Suzi

 

[rdnyva]

Great idea. thanks. I have had a pair of Mandarins in my 180 for about 1 1/2 years. They eat frozen food but are too slow to compete with the tangs and usualy don't get their fair share. I have a 33 gal long in my cabinet under the display that used to be my sump but is now empty. I can't get it out because it will not fit thorugh the doors. This will become my pod culturing station. Since it was a sump it is divided by baffles and this will actually give me two separate compartments. I will fill and start my cultures this week but could not figure out how to get the pods in the dispaly until now. What do you think of my culturing set up, have any comments/suggestions. What do you feed your pods? How about flow?

 

[suzimcmullen]

Well since my pod cultures are 1 (5) gallon tank and 2 (10) gallon tanks, I don't have any flow to speak of. I have only air stones in among the rocks and plants. I feed a mixture of things. I feed the crud that I siphon out of the bottom of my brine shrimp tanks. This would be bits of food from feeding the shrimp, but mostly their skin/bodies that they molt while growing up. I also feed some sinkable pellets, a little phytoplankton from time to time, some mysid shrimp once in awhile and even a little flake food. I don't have any special or set routine. But it has taken 3-4 months to get to the point where the 5 gallon has tons of pods that are easy to find. The other 2 tanks are starting to have visible pods on the glass now but still not much.

I recently bought 12 pounds of rock rubble on Ebay. I put it in a 5 gallon tank and I've been lightly feeding the tank and have thrown in some water from the other tanks to do small water changes. I haven't even tested the water yet. I was buying it for my tanks. But now I'm considering just leaving it and having another pod station. That lead me to the idea of maybe even setting up a 30 gallon rubbermaid container with a few air stones and rubble in there, lots and lots of rubble, and using that as a way to recycle tank water that I change from the other tanks. I bet if I leave it long enough the water would re-cycle and the parameters would be good. Because I change some of my water everyday, I know that there is still a lot of trace elements in the water. The thing is, I have to change water everyday in my seahorse tanks because I feed the tanks heavily to be sure and get them enough food.

If I try this, in time I should have a ton of pods in yet another tank

Suzi

 

[tcmfish]

Get one of those little breeder nets for mollies or whatever that is just a square mesh box that hangs in the tank. Put the mandarin in it and start with live brine then frozen brine then frozen mysis and call it a day you will have a fat happy mandarin eating frozen food. Then get one with a spike on the first dorsal (male) and one with no spike (female) and spawn them, then learn to raise the larvae and make more for everyone else.

 

[urbanrat84]

I agree with tcmfish - I have found that if you buy one that is already fat, isolate them in a breeders net and let them go hungry for 1-2 days - then introduce live brine and frozen mysis at the same time (or freshwater blackworms and frozen mysis) they will immediately take some of the mysis along with the live. You just do that once and then only offer them frozen mysis after that. Once they have tried it they will continue to eat it - its a good idea to keep them in the net for up to 3 months before you release them into the tank - by that stage they should get really excited when you approach the tank and gobble the food with enthusiasm. If you let them go too early they will immediately switch back to any live food they find in the tank. I have trained two mandarin's and a scooter blenny the same way and it works for me.

 

[suzimcmullen]

My scooter is already nipping lightly at the frozen mysis when I add it. I'm hoping the mandarin might too. I've never actually seen the mandarin eat the brine I put in there.

I really don't want to isolate him. He likes his copepods. I'll just keep creating great environments for the copepods and buying more to replace until I have so many I'll never run out. It's a worthy goal

Suzi

 

[urbanrat84]

You'd be surprised how many copepods a mandarin can eat - it is worth getting them on to alternative foods. I probably should mention too that you should turn your pumps off when feeding as mandarins will go for food that is resting on the substrate or rocks and not straight out of the water column.

 

[suzimcmullen]

The pumps are not a problem. I have a lot of plants in the tank and the food rests all over it. I see the seahorses picking food out of it for at least a half an hour after I feed them. I see the mandarin crawling all over the plants. But I can't be sure if he has tried any. I figure he's looking for copepods.

 

[phish guy]

now i have only had mine for 2 months now so i am no expert.

mine is about an inch long, his name is Wavy Gravy.

when i was looking at them in the LFS, i did ask what the were eating and asked to be shown, just to make sure. the little fellas did eat, so i chose the chubbiest of them all, granted none were "chubby" in the way we all know ours now but ya know. now my fuge at the time was not teaming with pods, it is now, but i had definitely seen plenty in the DT. the day after i brought him home he was eagerly searching the tank for pods. i tried adding some frozen mysis, didnt eat them though i think they were a little big for him. so the next day was frozen brine soaked in Selcon. that worked. i turned off the pumps so they werent flying around the tank. Wavy happily grabbed up as many as he could, even ones not moving on the ground. sadly he still shows no intrest in pellets that make it to ground but hey, maybe one day right. since i have gotten Wavy, i only added 1 bottle of pods from a LFS, just to be sure there were enough. i may do this again later as a treat but with as well as my fuge is doing i dont think it will be nessecary for his survival.

 

[stugray]

I have had Mandarins in my tanks since I started in the Hobby.

The first Male learned to eat Hikari Marin S ( small ) pellets. They are heavy & sink to the bottom fairly quickly.

When I added a female she learned almost immediately from the Male. They did the mating dance & she was always pregnant from then on.

The Male eventually died ( I assume from old age - he was huge & I had had him for almost 5 years ). So I bought a new male right away & added him to the tank ( BTW - I never QT mandarins ).

The female killed him the first night.

So I waited a month or so & added another Male. She eventually paired up with him and he learned to eat the pellets. I wondered after that experience if the female may not accept a new male when she is still pregnant from the first one?

So I have another mating pair that both eat pellets.

Stu

 

[Paaxil]

I have had my mandarin in my 20 gallon tank since March. I added a Hagen HOB filter that I filled with rocks and the only light it gets is the little bit from the display. The trick to feeding mine is to turn off all filters and leave only one powerhead going. I soak brine and mysis (after rinsing it in distilled water) in selcon and Ignacio (my male mandarin) hunts down the food. He has just recently started eating the mysis and now everytime after feeding it looks like he has eaten a marble. After eating he then fights with his reflection in the glass. These fish have great "personalities."

 

[ludiNano]

Stugray: did any of your mandarin baby's make it??