ORA Mandarin Dragonets!!!!!
- Thread starter Jordani
- Start date
Cute little guy. Which LFS?
gogators1088
New member
i wonder what the long term effects will be on them not eating the food theyre designed and been feeding on for hundreds of years
parrthed
New member
Thats a good question, He is currently in a 40 breeder that is overrun with caulerpa and monster pods (used to be a pony tank). I dropped a couple pellets in and he came right out and nabbed them. Really great feeding response. I am seriously suprised, very active and not shy at all.
gogators1088
New member
thats great, ive got a green mand in my 46 bow and he was good and plump when i got him and the next 3 weeks he slowly got skinnier and skinnier and finally decided itd be a good life choice for him to start eating the frozen brine and cyclops i was offering him lol
mustanglver98
New member
LMAO:lolspin:
EllieSuz
Premium Member
There are a couple of possible pitfalls to keeping these tank bred fish:
1. Just because they will eat pellets, doesn't mean they will know how to forage for pods between feedings. Mandarins need to eat pretty much constantly. If these fish still have the instinct for hunting, they will still need a quantity of live rock and/or a specific breeding ground for pods such as a refugium.
2. Feeding pellets once or twice a day will not sustain a Mandarin. They are timid eaters and they can't compete with other fish in your tank for pellets. Unless you have the time and patience to target feed these pellets directly in the vicinity of the Mandarin many times a day, I'm not sure the survival rate of the tank bred fish will be any better than wild caught ones. It may be necessary to overfeed your tank in order to keep these Mandarins alive. I'd like to hear opinions about these Ora fish from other reefers who are successfully keeping wild Mandarins and are familiar with their habits.
1. Just because they will eat pellets, doesn't mean they will know how to forage for pods between feedings. Mandarins need to eat pretty much constantly. If these fish still have the instinct for hunting, they will still need a quantity of live rock and/or a specific breeding ground for pods such as a refugium.
2. Feeding pellets once or twice a day will not sustain a Mandarin. They are timid eaters and they can't compete with other fish in your tank for pellets. Unless you have the time and patience to target feed these pellets directly in the vicinity of the Mandarin many times a day, I'm not sure the survival rate of the tank bred fish will be any better than wild caught ones. It may be necessary to overfeed your tank in order to keep these Mandarins alive. I'd like to hear opinions about these Ora fish from other reefers who are successfully keeping wild Mandarins and are familiar with their habits.
The Reef Expert
New member
OMFG it was eating pellets?? *** thats like unheard of! Awesome!
The Reef Expert
New member
They're So Cute!
I agree with Eileen. But there is a third problem as well: if you have other fish in the tank, you will have difficulty getting food enough times per day to the mandarin as other fish will hunt better.
How can anyone reprogram the brain of an animal?
hoffy02
New member
not by changing the brain but selective harvesting maybe? knowing the sex or "deciding" the sex... crazy!
fraggleRocks
New member
thats insane! And here I am, about a year with the new tank, waiting patiently to make sure I have a mature enough system that would be able to properly provide for one (no, seriously, I still stalk the copepods and isopods with a mini flashlight and a red shirt at night to see if the population is still growing, also got rid of my sock filter for a while to make sure they would stay and reproduce in the DT) AND NOW THIS. :hmm3:
fraggleRocks
New member
I diddnt even know it existed before this thread...:celeb1:
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