mandarin goby
- Thread starter mltmtascp
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wareagle35031
New member
They are tough though.
wareagle35031
New member
do you have a refuguim>
wareagle35031
New member
do you have a refugium
Tomoko Schum
New member
Mandarins are actually not tough to keep if you have a large amount of live rocks with pods living on them.
If they are in your established 120, I would not worry about your mandarin with or without refugium. My pair in my 120 have been fat and happy for about 3 years now, spawning pretty regularly. I noticed that my 5 yellow tail damsels are also eating pods a lot (they go nuts on tiggerpods and bbs), but their consumption does not seem to make much difference to the way my mandarins look and behave.
I hope your pair will soon start doing their courtship dance. They are so beautiful swimming side by side.
Tomoko
If they are in your established 120, I would not worry about your mandarin with or without refugium. My pair in my 120 have been fat and happy for about 3 years now, spawning pretty regularly. I noticed that my 5 yellow tail damsels are also eating pods a lot (they go nuts on tiggerpods and bbs), but their consumption does not seem to make much difference to the way my mandarins look and behave.
I hope your pair will soon start doing their courtship dance. They are so beautiful swimming side by side.
Tomoko
timrandlerv10
New member
i'm so jealous!
mine wont eat bbs...we are culturing triggerpods in a few different containers, and yesterday i '60 cc syringe'd' a bunch in, and he watched them swim right by--i was shocked! there were easily 40 or more triggerpods, and he just watched them go by!!!
they must look awesome together! congrats!
mine wont eat bbs...we are culturing triggerpods in a few different containers, and yesterday i '60 cc syringe'd' a bunch in, and he watched them swim right by--i was shocked! there were easily 40 or more triggerpods, and he just watched them go by!!!
they must look awesome together! congrats!
Tomoko Schum
New member
Tim,
I'm sorry that you cannot entice your mandarin to take bbs and tiggerpods. When I dump tiggerpods into my 120, my yellow tail blue damsels will find them immediately while all other fish ignore them. My mandarins will not get to them right away, either.
When I put adult brine shrimp into my tank, my male mandarin does perk up and come out to feed soon. However, he is such a slow eater that I have to dump some more brine shrimp to help him out while distracting others with some other food.
Thanks to all the live food, my yellow tail blue damsels have been laying eggs on the underside of my orange Montipora capricornis for a few weeks. Unfortunately, my monti cap started losing tissues where the damsels cleaned for a previous egg laying site and now a brown jelly like infection started at the edge of the area they cleaned
The monti cap is huge and I have been contemplating fragging it up to pieces (again), but the damsels might have done it for me. If the infection continues to spread, the damsels may lose their happy home, though. I may have to break off the large plate after all to save a part of the coral for the damsel.
Tomoko
I'm sorry that you cannot entice your mandarin to take bbs and tiggerpods. When I dump tiggerpods into my 120, my yellow tail blue damsels will find them immediately while all other fish ignore them. My mandarins will not get to them right away, either.
When I put adult brine shrimp into my tank, my male mandarin does perk up and come out to feed soon. However, he is such a slow eater that I have to dump some more brine shrimp to help him out while distracting others with some other food.
Thanks to all the live food, my yellow tail blue damsels have been laying eggs on the underside of my orange Montipora capricornis for a few weeks. Unfortunately, my monti cap started losing tissues where the damsels cleaned for a previous egg laying site and now a brown jelly like infection started at the edge of the area they cleaned
The monti cap is huge and I have been contemplating fragging it up to pieces (again), but the damsels might have done it for me. If the infection continues to spread, the damsels may lose their happy home, though. I may have to break off the large plate after all to save a part of the coral for the damsel.Tomoko
H@rry
In Memoriam
The mandarin that we have now is the third one that we've had. Although we can see a lot of pods and mysis shrimp, that's not what he's eating. We have some kind of little black bugs that are just tiny specs that move around over the rocks and he doesn't seem to be eating them either. I've carefully watched them pick at the rocks and never can see what they're picking at. It's almost like they're eating something too small for us to see.
Tomoko Schum
New member
I have seen my first mandarin attack and eat a good size amphipod. It also ate bbs very well.
My current pair does not come out to feed on bbs when I add them to the tank, but the male do come out to catch and eat adult brine shrimp.
Some people are lucky to have a mandarin that eats pellets (I am sooooo envious.) I heard about a big fat one that comes up to the water surface to eat flake food. I wish mine did that. My Japanese friend told me that her LFS trains their mandarin to eat pellets before they release them to customers (what a service!). She has a video to prove it. I think Melev has a video of his mandarin eating Formula I pellets, too.
Tomoko
My current pair does not come out to feed on bbs when I add them to the tank, but the male do come out to catch and eat adult brine shrimp.
Some people are lucky to have a mandarin that eats pellets (I am sooooo envious.) I heard about a big fat one that comes up to the water surface to eat flake food. I wish mine did that. My Japanese friend told me that her LFS trains their mandarin to eat pellets before they release them to customers (what a service!). She has a video to prove it. I think Melev has a video of his mandarin eating Formula I pellets, too.
Tomoko
NicoleC
New member
Dragonettes can be trained to take frozen food and pellets. It just takes a lot of consistency -- and preferably getting them well trained in QT when there aren't so many distractions like wild pods running around. My scooter dragonette pair ate from a special diner I set up for them -- anything I put in it they would eat. (Then the male got to be a real b****** and would ruin the food so the female didn't get any. The male got the heave ho and the female returned to her former plush figure.) Of course the nassarius snails and everything else learned to raid the diner, too.
There's a guy in So Cal that used to raise mandarins in captivity. Although he used lots of live food cultures for the larvae, all of his broodstock and young fish ate prepared foods in his bare hatchery system.
There's a guy in So Cal that used to raise mandarins in captivity. Although he used lots of live food cultures for the larvae, all of his broodstock and young fish ate prepared foods in his bare hatchery system.
mltmtascp
New member
I do have a fuge and also about 130 pounds of rock in that tank. We are currently cycling some more rock and we are going to add more rock to that tank.
QUOTE]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12405610#post12405610 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wareagle35031
do you have a refuguim> [/QUOTE]
QUOTE]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12405610#post12405610 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wareagle35031
do you have a refuguim> [/QUOTE]
wareagle35031
New member
thats a bunch of rock
timrandlerv10
New member
how does one train a mandarin to eat non-invisible foods? i'm willing to rip down the rock and drain the tank to catch him and move him out to train him if thats what it takes.
where is your female sleeping? does the male sleep close by?
where is your female sleeping? does the male sleep close by?
Tomoko Schum
New member
I found my male sleeping on the sand bed the other night. He had a lot of sand speckles on him. I thought he was dead, too. When I shined the light on him, he rolled his eye at me. 
His girlfriend was nowhere near him. I don't think they sleep together. They lead separate lives and get together only late at night for a short time.
Tomoko
His girlfriend was nowhere near him. I don't think they sleep together. They lead separate lives and get together only late at night for a short time.Tomoko
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