Mandarin motions

[cee]

The female mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) I picked up at the CR a few weeks ago was going through the spawning motions with my almost 5 year captive male (no eggs released tonight). He had to "teach" her how to eat frozen, but she's fat now. They both swam to the surface, bellies tightly coupled, in a slow spiral, but were interrupted by my wrasse. This about 1/2 hour before the lights are due to go out (actinics only). Too bad the larvae are planktonic or they might be worth the effort of trying to harvest and raise (hatch in 9-18 hours, I've read, and eat after just a few days). First my prolific A. percula pair and now this and all I ever wanted was to grow corals Matt, if you want to try them and I start to see eggs, I'd be willing to attempt to harvest some for you.

Dave

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Larvae are planktonic and hard to see, but my cardinal sure can see them, I suspect. When my pair starts dancing late at night just before the lights go out, I can tell where they are by watching where my large cardinal is. As soon as the pair hit the water surface and split, the cardinal moves right in.

Tomoko

 

[cee]

Probably excellent coral food, although I suspect a bit on the large size for SPS polyps. In any case, they seem happy together. The hobby surprises me at every turn; the other night I discovered a neon green pistol shrimp chasing a clown goby out of one of my large SPS colonies.

Dave

 

[Tomoko Schum]

A neon green pistol shrimp? That must be really pretty! But I never heard of a commensal pistol shrimp

Tomoko

 

[Fishboy42]

Interesting observations Dave What kind of frozen foods have you gotten them to eat?

Mandarins would be a fun species to raise in the future (and one of Dad's favorites, so we'd have his support ).

There's quite a bit of information about breeding them here if anyone's curious and up for a read:

MOFIB Dragonette Forum

 

[cee]

Matt:
They eat mysis and probably brine shrimp when I feed that to the tank. The pistol is probably Corallocaris graminea, and here's a picture (bizarre creature):

Dave

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Wow, that's a bizarre looking shrimp :eek2:

Check out these little Mandarins in a beer mug.


Tomoko

 

[Flavum]

Beautiful shrimp there Dave.

nice link tomoko. That looks crazy with all of them on top of eachother.