Mandarin goby!!!????

[king_Neptune]

Ok so I have a fish credit to my lfs ive been holding on to for a while now,i went in yesterday and noticed one of the most beautiful mandarins ive ever seen. From the sound of things there impossible to keep ?? I have 75g lots of rock about 15% is live,i feed frozen brine daily

 

[JSeymour]

How long has the tank been setup and what tankmates would it have?

 

[king_Neptune]

Its the tank in my sig been set up 3 months now

 

[vaporized]

Do you have copepods in abundance in your tank? If "yes" than I say why not, provided you do not have aggressive tank mates. If you are not sure, inspect the rock and sump for microscopic things swimming around or google "copepods" so you know what they look like.

 

[AliciaP]

I would wait longer so they can really get a good hold in your tank. A mamdarin can wipe all the pods out in a few weeks. Of course, if you go in there and ask them to feed the mandarin and you see him eating frozen food like mysis or brine shrimp, give it a go. Those ones are easier to keep.

 

[JSeymour]

At only three months old, started with little live rock, I would definitely tell you to wait. During the first 9-12 months, populations of all kinds wax and wane, slowly becoming more stable as food sources become stabilized. This includes copepod numbers. Definitely wait, or if you really want that one, find a fellow reefer who will keep it in their mature tank until yours is ready.

 

[hobbzz]

Ora mandarins eat prepared foods. If it was an ora it would be about $60 as opposed to the normal $20. Won't hurt to ask the lfs.

 

[JSeymour]

Ora mandarins eat prepared foods.

Sometimes. If you do a search for ORA mandarian not eating, you'll see what I mean.

Even if it was an ORA, I would recommend you wait, unless as someone else posted, you see it eat thawed mysis or ova at the store. Pellets would be even better.

 

[king_Neptune]

I was thinking about buying a bottle of pods, the one I want at the lfs dosent eat frozen I watched them try to feed him mysis and he didn't eat it. So I guess im gonna pass but man hes pretty!!

 

[king_Neptune]

I didn't know they had ora mandarins

 

[TheGodParticle]

In my experience after a day of shipping and stress then being tosses into a new tank, ORA MANDARINES go back to doing the only thing they know how to do, eating copepods and needing to be retrain to eating frozen foods. If you tank isn't that old I wouldn't purchase one. Get a copepod colony going first. Better safe than sorry.

 

[king_Neptune]

Would it help if I bought a bottle of Copepods to start my colony?

 

[EllieSuz]

You need a mature tank of at least six months to a year. You also need a place where pods can reproduce without predation. This usually means a mature refugium with rock rubble and Chaeto. The thing nobody mentions when discussing Mandarins that will accept frozen foods is the frequency you'd have to feed it to mimic their natural eating habits. If you fed that much and that often, your water parameters would go berzerk. I've had two chubby Mandarins and they both ate frozen food, but they also hunted pods all day long. By all means, get a Mandarin, but wait six months or longer and in the meanwhile, build up a 'fuge with store bought pods to seed it.

 

[Roots]

Mandarins are specialized feeders. Their mouth and digestive system are designed for eating tiny live prey all day long. They are grazers of live pods and the like. They lack a stomach in the traditional sense and therefore cannot make use of large meals fed a couple times a day. They need food available to eat all day long. So even ORA or Mandarins that are sold as trained to eat frozen foods is only helpful if the aquarist is willing to put in the necessary time to continually be adding food to the tank all day long every day.

I recently acquired a pair of Mandarins and what I am doing (Because Mandarins are almost always starving to death when purchased at a LFS) is using a DIY feeding station to feed freshly hatched Baby Brine Shrimp that I use within the first 8 hours after they hatch. During the first 8 hours after hatching the Baby Brine are supposed to have the most nutrition since they still have their yolk sac still attached. I also "Gut Load" the Brine by feeding them Spirulina Powder and Live Phytoplankton a couple hours before injecting them into the feeding station. So far my Mandarins are loving the feeding station and will sit on top of it for periods of time and just graze on the Baby Brine. I can also use it to feed Live Pods.

Most systems, established and healthy or not, don't contain enough live food to sustain a Mandarin over the long haul. Not always the case, but do a search and some reading and you'll see that although Mandarins are certainly one of the most captivating and beautiful fish in the hobby, they require an advanced level of care in order to thrive. Most slowly starve to death over a period of many months due to insufficient amounts of live food in the tank.

IMO, if you don't intend to feed them live foods continually, you shouldn't expect long term success keeping Mandarins. :fish2:

 

[snorvich]

Ora mandarins eat prepared foods.

In theory, in practice, sometimes.

 

[king_Neptune]

Would be nice of they ate frozen.ill just hold my horses til my tank is better established