Mandarin acting strange

[Kruss7]

Hello,

I have had my Mandarin Dragonet for roughly 6 months. My tank is an SPS tank with a total volume of about 300 gallons. This tank is almost a year old and includes media from my previous tank, which was running for 5 years. I have a variety of other fish in the tank, and everything wet that goes into the tank is quarantined, including the Mandarin.

My Mandarin (female) is still relatively small and acts completely normal 99% of the time. However, I have recently observed very strange behavior. If I turn on any lights after lights out, she immediately floats to the top of the tank and swims erratically as if she is drunk, being blown around by the current. She has gotten stuck to my MP60s twice and was unable to free herself, so I had to use a net to get her off both times. After freeing her, she floats around the tank randomly until this behavior happens again. Even when I net her and place her back onto the sand, this behavior persists. I have put her in my acclimation box for safety, and by the next day, she is completely back to normal. Hunting and eating pods all around the tank. The first time this happened was 2 months ago.

I'm not sure how to handle this situation. The most recent occurrence was when I dosed coral snow, and the murky water triggered this behavior immediately. Thankfully, I noticed it in time. Has anyone else experienced this?

Thank you for any insights!

 

[griss]

Never heard of anything like this. My first thought was light shock since you mentioned it happened when you turned the lights on after they had gone off. But, then it seems she does this at random times.

@leebca @Dr. Reef @HumbleFish have you guys ever heard of something like this?

 

[Kruss7]

Never heard of anything like this. My first thought was light shock since you mentioned it happened when you turned the lights on after they had gone off. But, then it seems she does this at random times.

@leebca @Dr. Reef @HumbleFish have you guys ever heard of something like this?

Such a strange behaviour. Have heard they ride the flow to different parts of the reef in the wild, but this still seems weird.

 

[leebca]

Hello,

I have had my Mandarin Dragonet for roughly 6 months. My tank is an SPS tank with a total volume of about 300 gallons. This tank is almost a year old and includes media from my previous tank, which was running for 5 years. I have a variety of other fish in the tank, and everything wet that goes into the tank is quarantined, including the Mandarin.

My Mandarin (female) is still relatively small and acts completely normal 99% of the time. However, I have recently observed very strange behavior. If I turn on any lights after lights out, she immediately floats to the top of the tank and swims erratically as if she is drunk, being blown around by the current. She has gotten stuck to my MP60s twice and was unable to free herself, so I had to use a net to get her off both times. After freeing her, she floats around the tank randomly until this behavior happens again. Even when I net her and place her back onto the sand, this behavior persists. I have put her in my acclimation box for safety, and by the next day, she is completely back to normal. Hunting and eating pods all around the tank. The first time this happened was 2 months ago.

I'm not sure how to handle this situation. The most recent occurrence was when I dosed coral snow, and the murky water triggered this behavior immediately. Thankfully, I noticed it in time. Has anyone else experienced this?

Thank you for any insights!

I have never heard of this behavior before. Sorry.

Based upon the information provided, it would seem to be a physiological issue.

 

[OrionN]

I think the problem here is “…turn on any light after lights out….” Normally Mandarin sleep on the surface in a cocoon in a slow moving water area. When you turn on the light after light out, she started to move not really awake and got drag by water movement.
I have very high flow in my tank but I never disturb my tank after light out. Also all my MP 60 go into night mode where it cut down to 50% constant flow. This decreased the flow a lot so fish can sleep at night.