keeping multiple mandarines

jadeguppy

New member
I run a skimmerless system so I have lots of pods. I decided to go ahead and add another mandarine, actually it turned out to be two. I have a green mandarine and wanted a spotted one, but when I walked into the store I noticed one of the green mandarines looked more like a red mandarin. I looked it up on their computer and am nearly certain it is a red mandarine. Knowing that I also have a 40g that I can move one to if needed, I went ahead and got the red and the spotted. However, I forgot to check gender. The green female is now harrassing the red female whenever she gets close. Is this going to be a problem or should it stay tame and eventually go away?

For those worried, please note that I plan to keep a very close eye on them and move one if food starts to get thin. One of the benefits of having multiple tanks.
 
I have had a male for 6 months. I introduced a female 3 weeks ago. They never fought but they ignored eachother for the first 2 weeks....over the last week they have been spending more and more time together each day........mandarins of the same sex will typically nip at eachother until one is dead. I would remove one asap......they are tough to get them eating when introduced to a new tank....when they have to deal with insesant nipping it will be even harder to get them to eat.....
 
Bummer. Not what I hoped for. I guess one will be moved to the other tank.

Do you think she will nip at a male the same as she does the other female?
 
I've seen many times a male w/ a harem of females, usually not a problem.
Are you sure thats what you have?
Males will definitely fight.
I'd be concerned about putting one in a 40g unless it's tied to a large fuge.
 
Yes, both appear to be females with no "spike". The aggresive one has been in my tank for months. Maybe the male keeps the ladies in line?

The 40g is also skimmerless with a large fuge and tons of rock. It is the older of the two tanks. It has been up for 2 or 3 years with most of the rock coming from another established tank.
 
Greens/Reds and Target will fight regardless of sex. However, I am keeping 2 in my 180. There was terrible aggression for quite a while, but over the last few months its seems to have stopped. My smaller green seems to have accepted being dominated by the larger target, and tends to stay in the rockwork while my target roams fearlessly.
 
I wonder what the trick is to keeping multiples in the same tank. anyone know?

Update: the red mandarine has been moved to my 40g and is already hunting and eating. :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15459685#post15459685 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tufacody
Greens/Reds and Target will fight regardless of sex. However, I am keeping 2 in my 180. There was terrible aggression for quite a while, but over the last few months its seems to have stopped. My smaller green seems to have accepted being dominated by the larger target, and tends to stay in the rockwork while my target roams fearlessly.

I've seen many times people having red/green mixed w/ targets w/ no probs, but they are animals, and personalities can vary.
I and others in our local club have had success keeping a male w/ 2-3 females w/out probs, and one of our local guys had 4-5 females and a male.
Food competition is something to consider.
In a 125g I'd probably keep to a pair, and be happy w/ success on that.
Keep in mind, they have a high metabolism rate, and at 1-3 pods per minute, they can decimate pod population pretty fast.
 
Mandarines are one of my favorite fish. I have tried not to buy fish that will compete with them for food. No sixlines or other wrasses in the tank.

A quick background on my journey: I have had problems getting my nitrastes down below 10 in the 125g for over six months. I've tried many methods and finally got the "whack on the head" that I needed. It dawned on me that I had been having a lot of success with my 40g running skimmerless, why not try it with the 125g. I had constantly heard that big tanks MUST have a skimmer. the skimmer has been off for three weeks and turf algae is starting to grow on the algae turf scrubber I installed. Nitrates dropped to 5 as of last night. :) A very nice side effect of the ats and lack of skimmer is that pods have been breeding, well like pods, and the skimmer isn't there to remove them or their food. Apparently the pods breed so well on the scrubbers that scrubber care includes rinsing in tap water to remove as many as possible because they over populate and start eating holes in the turf algae. Without the current noticable increase in pods, I would not have tried to add a second or third mandarin. I have also noticed that feeding fresh phyto really helps pods. I don't have fresh so I'm using reef bugs for the moment. I have always wanted to try breeding these guys, but haven't had the courage to try. However, my students will be raising some clownfish fry which require some of the same basics so I may give it a try.

Thank you all for the advice. It is all good advise and I really appreciate the first hand experience,m especially since it is the first time I have tried to keep more than one.
 
My last pair were spawning pretty regularly.
I happened to be building a cabinet for a girl that was online live cam w/ Melev, and she told him about my spawning mandy's.
I was pretty excited about trying to breed myself until his comment/advice saying basically, "good luck, about 5 people in the world are breeding them successfully, and it's alot more difficult than breeding clowns, an already challenging task"
So I just figured enjoy the mating dances at night and keep my life simple.
Good luck if you do try, and keep us posted on outcome.
 
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