Mandy rehab

[Coelli]

So, I got my mandarin today...

I was at Vivid today for something else and they had a couple of green mandies (not spotted, regular green mandies) in a floor-level, not very brightly lit tank. I've been thinking my tank was ready and was going to start looking for a mandy soon anyway, so I picked the one who looked a little better (there were a bunch of damsels in the tank and the other mandy's tail was a bit frayed).

When I got home and got him acclimated and in the tank I saw that he looks healthy, but he's thin. Not emaciated, just a bit skinny.

He spent some time cruising the tank before lights out and other than getting nipped at when he went too close to the royal gramma's cave he seems to be okay. He's pecking at the rocks and should be finding pods.

I built the tank with a mandy in mind; it's only a 65g but there's plenty of rock, rock piles, and a foam/live rock wall. My sump is a 20g long and I dedicated as much room as I could to the fuge section. The fuge has an eggcrate rack covering one side with MarinePure balls stacked vertically in a single layer, to give more places for pods to hide and reproduce. I thin the chaeto only when it really starts to get out of control. The fuge has pods all over the glass. I only clean the front and one side of the glass in the DT, letting the pod-friendly film build up on the other side. I feed the fuge a couple of times a week. The tank has been up for only 5 months, but all of the LR, barring the rock built into the wall, came over from my old tank.

Anyway, he will probably find plenty of food in the DT but I still worry that because he's thin he needs a boost. Should I net him tomorrow and put him in the fuge for a week or so?

 

[Coelli]

Update:

Well, the little guy is super shy and spends most of his time behind the rocks cruising where it's darkest. He is definitely hunting though. I turned the pumps off and dropped some Cyclopeeze down to his area this morning and he may have eaten some, but I'm not sure (he certainly perked up when he "smelled" it).

Still wondering if I should stick him in the fuge for now - he won't be able to get to the pods in the middle or back of the chaeto (it's up against one side) or the pods that stay on the media in the rack. So he could make a dent in the fuge but probably not wipe it out.

How long does it take a skinny mandarin to turn the corner and fatten up...? I know it's variable, but just wondering about a ballpark.

Alternately, and riskier, I could put him in the baby clowns' acclimation box and see if I can get him to eat anything in there.

 

[snorvich]

I would put him in the refugium.

 

[Coelli]

Thanks Steve!!

 

[MondoBongo]

How long does it take a skinny mandarin to turn the corner and fatten up...? I know it's variable, but just wondering about a ballpark.

mine gradually plumped up over the course of the next couple weeks.

if you really want to try to super charge the process, feeding live worms (black and white) and making a baby brine shrimp feeder can be very helpful.

i was doing supplemental feeding once a day for the first couple months. just to make sure she had plenty to eat. i have nothing to suggest that she would not have been OK on her own, but barring massive overfeeding and a subsequent drop in water quality, it can't hurt to supplement.

bonus about using the feeder is that you can get them accustomed to coming to one area of the tank for feeding. this can be helpful when introducing new foods in to their diet. when i was heavily supplementing my mandy would float on over to the feeder area as soon as the pumps shut off. nice little (apparent) Pavlovian response.

 

[Coelli]

Thanks Mondo. I'm going to pick up some pods and blackworms on the way home, white too if they have them. He was still okay this morning so I'm hopeful. I have a couple of sponges in the sump on standby for the QT and shook one into the DT last night. He's still mostly sticking to the back of the tank where I'm unable to net him to get him into the fuge.

 

[MondoBongo]

my pleasure. they usually seem to do OK on their own as long as they're in good shape, and there is plenty of food, but it never hurts to help along.

with the black worms, i squirt them in to the tank in very small quantities, and try to get them close to the intended target. they only live for seconds in saltwater, so if you drop too many in, it creates a lot of waste, but if you get them close to your dragonet they suck them down just like spaghetti.

good luck!

 

[Coelli]

Just an update (day 4)... I'm not optimistic. He's lost weight even though there are pods everywhere and I don't really see him hunting now. I bought tigger pods, R.O.E., and blood worms and he gets so freaked out when I turn the pumps off to try to spot feed him that he just hides no matter how long I leave them off. I've tried dropping the food down wherever he's hiding but he ignores it and then takes off for another hiding place when the inverts show up for it. He's listless and scared. The only other active fish in the tank are a royal gramma and starry blenny and he's nervous about them too although they mostly ignore him.

I made a huge mistake not just putting right him into the fuge; also made a huge mistake in buying a skinny mandarin in the first place. I've tried to net him a couple of times but there's a lot of rock in the tank and he's still quick. To even get to him I have to wait until he's more in the open, which is very rare. I thought he'd do better in the DT with all of the rock but that's clearly not the case.

I feel terrible - he could still make it, but it doesn't look good. I have the guilt of having him decline in my tank. He might have died in the store or someone else's tank but here I've gone and contributed to the mandy market only to have it suffer.

Poor little guy!!

 

[Coelli]

I got him into the fuge!! Right after I posted I saw him on the rocks closer to the front of the tank and this time I tried a two-prong approach - used a piece of rigid airline tubing to herd him with one hand and the net in the other. He swam up and wedged himself along the top of the rock wall and I got lucky and scared him into jumping into the net. He's really skinny and I'm not hopeful but he'll have a better chance in the fuge. Positive thoughts welcome...

 

[MondoBongo]

best of luck. hopefully the move helps him out. keep us updated.

 

[Lucky Lefty]

I have 2 mandarins. Both were extremely skinny when I got them (separate times). Their stomachs were sucked in so much you couldn't see their belly.
Each one I watched for at least 20 minutes in the lfs amd noticed that they were actively pecking for pods. I read on here once, the sign of a healthy mandarin is at least 5 or 6 pecks a minute, most times more. A sick or overly stressed mandarin just seem to swim around, looking lost, and are rarely seen pecking for pods, at least that's what I think.
Each mandarin I got was the smallest one in the tank, but have been eating pods like champs since they went in the dt. Both took about 2 weeks to start building body mass, getting fat now. At the end of everyday their stomachs are stuffed.

 

[Coelli]

Unfortunately he didn't make it. I think more than anything the stress did him in; he wasn't skinny enough to have starved that quickly? Vivid had only had him in for a few days; another lesson learned, if I try another mandarin (and I may not) in the future I'll look for a healthy one who's been in the system for a while, or get one from a tank breakdown. I feel so bad for the little guy. My tank and sump are still full of visible pods in all stages, so food wasn't the problem.

I wish I wish I wish ORA was still captive breeding them. I would have paid the extra money for a mandy who wasn't dealt such a crappy hand.

 

[Lucky Lefty]

from what I read the ORA mandarins weren't guaranteed eaters either.

I'd say the next time you try one, sit and watch it in the store for a while. Watch it's behavior.

As I stated before, you want to witness them actively pecking for pods. anything less than 5 or 6 pecks a minute and something is probably wrong. All mandarins do, all day long, is eat constantly.
My last mandarin (red mandarin) was only at the lfs for 3 days before I got her home. Saw her an hour after she came in, very shy, stressed and not eating, came back 2 days later and she was all over the tank pecking away. I still watched her for at least 15 minutes or so to study her behavior and I was happy with what I saw. Brought her home and hers body's almost completely filled out.

Sorry for your loss. All in all, it may be tough to support a mandarin long term in a 65g. Good luck.

 

[MondoBongo]

Sorry for your loss. The chain of custody can be rough on these guys. Couple that with the fact that some unscrupulous suppliers will use cyanide capture or harpoons to catch them, and it can be doomed from the start.

 

[snorvich]

I wish I wish I wish ORA was still captive breeding them. I would have paid the extra money for a mandy who wasn't dealt such a crappy hand.

My experience with them was very negative.

 

[Coelli]

My experience with them was very negative.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a mandy that will eat prepared food because I wouldn't want to rely on it. But I think being captive bred might give them a leg (fin) up as far as mortality rates.

As for the 65g long term, the amount of LR surface area in my tank is much greater than a normal 65g because of the 30"x22" rock wall; in addition to the rock on the front, pods can get behind it. As far as I know the size of the tank is a limiter because of the amount of LR you can fit in it and the rock wall increases that greatly.

Here's what the wall looked like before the tank was filled, just to give an idea.