mandarin goby care

[blazing]

wussup ya i want to get a mandarin goby for my tank but i'v read they are hard to keep cuzz the are very picky eaters. can some one tell me what is rerquired to keep these? i read that they est copepods and wanted to know the best way to breed them so i have enough food to feed the goby. if anyone could help me out here with any info that i might need to know to keep these fishes in good health would be great thxs.

 

[Paul B]

I find mandarins to be the easiest, least maintenance, long lived fish, BUT, not in your tank.
IMO, your tank is too young and a little small but not too bad.
A mandarin needs PODs to live and thrive. In my tank I don't have to do anything because the tank is old enough and dirty enough to have a large population of pods.
You can feed mandarins but they need to eat all day and feeding them is really not going to work, long term.
I think you should let your tank mature for maybe another year and see how your pod population does.

 

[blazing]

Is there any way to boost the pod population in my tank?

 

[Paul B]

Yes unfortunately that means not having a very sterile tank. Pods will thrive if there is some uneaten food and some detritus, in other words, things that people try to avoid, but with time all tanks will develop a large POD population.

 

[blazing]

What are detritus? Are thry the brown algae that grow on fish tanks? I do kinda over feed my fishes in my tank too and there is usually uneaten food on the bottom of my sand bed. And lately I have been noticeing little white bugs on my glass.

 

[Paul B]

What are detritus?

The dirt you see blowing around the bottom of the tank. Those tiny white bugs are pods which mandarins eat. They eat a lot of them, like one every 10 seconds or so

 

[MattL]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15120411#post15120411 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by blazedapurp
Is there any way to boost the pod population in my tank?

Yes: time.

Just have patience. As your tank matures at about a year and a half to two years of age, with other measures (like ensuring a lack of pid predation and adding a refugium), you will have everything you need.

Matt

 

[snorvich]

I agree with all that Paul and Matt said. Be patient.

 

[snorvich]

Oh, by the way, Mandarins are not gobies, they are Dragonettes.

 

[blazing]

yea i read that somewhere. well a few weeks ago i went to pick up some corals from a guy on craigslist and he had a mandarin(a pretty big one about 5-6 inches) in his tank. my girl saw the fish and really liked it so a few days before i could tell her my tank wasn't ready for one. we tried to return it back to the pet store buy they wouldn't take it back. i have been feeding it live brine shrimp so far but haven't seen him eating it. but today i seen him pecking at the rocks so hes getting for for the mean time. do mandarins usually eat live brine? what should i do? i was think about starting a pod culture but have read it wasent worth culturing them. any tips on how i caould get it to eat prepared foods?

 

[blazing]

and would i be able to keep a diamond goby and mandarin together?

 

[Paul B]

I really don't know what type of available food you could feed a 5-6" mandarin. In the sea he would be eating something larger than a pod but in the sea there are all sorts of small live animals to eat. They will eat brine shrimp but that is not on their diet and they are more accustomed to eating non swimming food. they are not too fast. I also don't know what propared food you could give him. That fish should have ben left in the sea.
You could keep a diamond gobi in the same tank with a mandarin, maybe not a 6" mandarin.

 

[blazing]

My mandarin isn't 6". The guy I went to buy corals from was 6". Mine is about 3"-3 1/2". I also block off about 6" of my 55 gal with a piece of egg crate and threw a gal of chaeto in there and have 2 piles of rubble rock.

 

[Paul B]

My mandarin isn't 6". The guy I went to buy corals from was 6".

Wow how did you find such a short guy? :lol:

OK Ok I got it, I just couldn't resist.
Your mandarin is normal size and will live on pods

 

[MattL]

That was a very bad thing to do, and my advice is to try and find someone locally who can take him.

He will probably slowly starve to death considering the newness of your system and your lacking an established refugium.

Matt

 

[blazing]

How could I get him on live brine? When I started my tank I got my rocks from a guy that had hid tank runnin for about 2 years. Don't know if that makes a difference. I'm gonna be up grading to a 72 gal and this tank is going to have a sump. I'm gonna try to have it runnin by this month

 

[kenqc]

my lfs sell pods that someone cultures locally. if you have a local fish store or an online source to buy pods from until you get your refugium up and running with pods perhaps you could get by. I have also heard that you can buy arcticpods online. The cost will get prohibitive, but that also may work as the fish seem to love them.

 

[Zaita]

Gah. Posts like this are the reason why there is a Mandarin Primer.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1492650

 

[blazing]

When I posted this thread I didn't see that. But I've already read through all that and I'm trying to get more info.

 

[snorvich]

From the questions you are asking, you should consider rereading it.