SUCCESSFUL Mandarin keepers! Got a question for you...

[stlcard]

This is for SUCCESSFUL mandarin keepers-

Now then. Mandarin Keepers,

First- I do not have a mandarin. merely researching possibilities for the future.
My tank setup is 10 months now. everything is settled out. I dont plan to try adding a mandarin for at least another 6 months. and until im completely comfortable.

Do you guys home culture your pods in a separate tank for added food source? Is it a common practice?

I have done hours on hours of research on mandarins. Books, magazines, articles, forums. Most forums seem to just direct you to have a very well established tank (1-2yrs min) PLUS a powerful Fuge setup.

(Correct me if you know this is wrong) I have read that a healthy mandarin (one not harvested via cyanide) will hunt 24hrs. They feed/ snap (or should at least) at pods roughly every 2-5 seconds. That theroretically means they have the potential to need 43,200 pods a day??.. sounds a bit fishy.. (pardon the tacky pun)

In your exp, how large of a fuge do you run? do you home culture in a separate tank as well? I am thinking about doing a small culture tank to "redose/ supply" the tank weekly.

My fuge has pods copepods and tangarine , and what i would call alot, but its certainly not 43,000.

Side bar- are the mandarins aquacultured easily or are all the ones you see wild caught? Its kind of disgusting how many newbies i have read about being negligent with such a specialized and beautiful fish.

Thanks.

 

[EllieSuz]

Mandarins sleep at night so they're not hunting 24/7. They also turn a pale gray color while they sleep and if you happen to see one, you'll be sure it's dead. Many of the pods that they eat are too small to be seen with the human eye, so you can't use visual inspection to determine your pod population. Ora has perfected breeding Target Mandarins in captivity and trained them to eat pellets. These fish have not always been successful in home aquariums and there are threads to search regarding these. The problem is that to feed a Mandarin enough frozen or prepared foods, you would have to drastically overfeed the tank. The biggest measure of potential success, in my opinion, is whether you have sufficient breeding grounds for pods and no other fish that compete with the Mandarin for them. I have a compartment in my sump that suffices as a refugium. In it, I keep rock rubble and Chaeto. Now and then I turn off everything but the return pump, including the skimmer, and give the Chaeto a good shake to import pods from the 'fuge to the Display. How big is your tank? How much rock do you have? Do you have a refugium? Have you purchased pods to "seed" the 'fuge and Display? Those are the indicators of a successful Mandarin keeper. My first Mandarin got himself wedged in the rock and died, but he was chubby when he went. The one I have now seems to be doing well and hunts well. I augment his hunting by feeding him frozen foods when I feed the other fish. Just recently he's learned to swim to the feeding tube and strike enriched brine shrimp right from the tube. If a piece of food floats away, he will grab it out of the water column. This is not normal Mandarin behavior and you can't count on them taking frozen foods. There are "Mandarin Diner" threads on feeding them you can search for. It's best to be sure you have enough pods for them to get everything they need by hunting.

 

[stlcard]

Thanks Ellie, Additional comments from other users still welcomed!

Ellie, i have a 33 with a 10g sump. half of it is a fuge with rubble, and thriving cheato. i have about 25#'s LR in DT ( I hate the over packed aquascape look) I dosed the initial batch of pods 2 months ago. I have copepods AND tangerine pods (easier to see, and hang out in the water column unlike coe's which tend to hide)

Fuge pods seem to be thriving. I think ill end up culturing pods for curiosity sake, and added bonus to fish.

Regarding pairing dragonets - does the male/female combo have to be introduced at the same time like most clowns?

 

[EllieSuz]

I'm not sure you have a large enough system for one, let alone a pair. As I have never tried a pair, I can't answer that question. I would urge you to use the search function and read about some of the clever ways people have been able to sustain these fish.

 

[stlcard]

certainly will do, thanks for your input.

 

[RDHDDRAGON]

I have a male and female. I also have a 220 gal tank with a 75 gallon fuge/sump with probably about +500 lbs of liverock. I did not introduce mine at the same time, infact the male was half the size of the female when i put him in there. When I found him he was starving to death. Now he is the same size as her. If they are swimming, they are hunting. Everytime i see them they are gliding over the rocks pecking at everything.

Im with Ellie, I really don't know if your tank is big enough to sustain a sufficient pod population. Especially since you have minimal liverock in the tank. If you have clowns or blennies since they will eat pods as well.

Before I get yelled at, i have seen some people who have succeeded with mandarins in small setups. If you can get one weaned onto frozen food or pellets then your chances of success would increase.

It is heartbreaking to watch such a beautiful fish starve and die though. Definitely do more homework before taking on this fish.

 

[rssjsb]

I have a male and female. I also have a 220 gal tank with a 75 gallon fuge/sump with probably about +500 lbs of liverock. I did not introduce mine at the same time, infact the male was half the size of the female when i put him in there. When I found him he was starving to death. Now he is the same size as her. If they are swimming, they are hunting. Everytime i see them they are gliding over the rocks pecking at everything.

Im with Ellie, I really don't know if your tank is big enough to sustain a sufficient pod population. Especially since you have minimal liverock in the tank. If you have clowns or blennies since they will eat pods as well.

Before I get yelled at, i have seen some people who have succeeded with mandarins in small setups. If you can get one weaned onto frozen food or pellets then your chances of success would increase.

It is heartbreaking to watch such a beautiful fish starve and die though. Definitely do more homework before taking on this fish.

I completely agree with all of this, with one exception: As EllieSuz says, you simply cannot count on providing enough food by adding pods or being able to provide enough prepared foods - pellets or frozen - to keep a mandarin in good health. And RDHDDRAGON is correct that it is horrible to have a fish starve to death in your care.

 

[Blayz77]

I have a 50g with a 15g sump with cheato, minimal rock in display 2 very large and 2 medium rock. Fish are snowcasso clown, multicolor angel, coral beauty, and male mandarin.

When I first setup the tank I started with dry macro rock, and after the cycle I seeded with various pods purchased in stores and online for 6 months. After that I added my mandarin, purchased him from a LFS.

The mandarin was on the thin side when I first put him in, you could see the tummy was sucked in a litttle. I fed the tank as I normally would most of the time I feed once a day rotating sinking pellets/mysis/flake. Sometimes I'll toss in some roe eggs, forget what they are called. After a couple weeks the Mandarin was eating whatever I tossed in. Once or twice a month I might feed the tank twice. Other than that I really didn't do anything special other then to continue to add pods for a couple months afterwards.

Once I noticed him eating the prepared foods I stopped seeding with pods. Its probably been more then a year since I added any. Im sure there are better ways but this worked/works for me. The mandarin does swim all day around the rocks pecking here and there. Coulddnt tell ya if hes eating pods or not since im not sure if i have any. But is been about 2 years now and hes been doing just fine.

 

[greg1786]

I have a wildcaught target mandarin in a 55gal setup. I know I have not had mine for an extensive amount of time only a month and half but he is very plump and hunts constantly. my system was a year and four months old before I added her. I seeded my tank several times with reefpods before I got her. I have about 50lbsof live rock tho I do not have a refugium. I benefit from the fact that she was eating live brine shrimp at the store before I even got her. ask your lfs to feed brine whileyour there and see if it will accept them. I know its not very common but it seems some people get lucky. I still put reef pods in once every two weeks and I keep live brine at my house at all times and feed it to the whole tank every two days and she gobbles them up like a horse!! good luck


Posted from ReefCentral.com App for Android

 

[suta4242]

Don't wish to disillusion the OP, but don't assume if you get mandarin onto frozen, even with a mandarin diner, that this is enough to guarantee long term success. People forget that a large mandarin is bigger than say a slender wrasse. You'd be surprised at how many other fish would clean out his diner...IME this included firefish, a cunning flame angel who tan failed the entrance of the diner to get food out, a blenny etc...

The reason why people usually recommend a large tank with lots of rock and few pod eaters, is because the odds of long term success is high. There are alternative methods that can work, but when they don't the fish slowly starves. So, in short, my advice is upgrade if you want long term success. Alternately, find one eating frozen and keep it on its own to ensure he gets plenty to eat.

HTH and good luck! :wavehand:

 

[Reefmedic79]

With a tank your size, I think culturing pods is a requirement if your going to have any success.

As others have mentioned though, to get 99% success, you're going to need a larger system with more live rock.

Sent from my future self.

 

[stlcard]

Don't wish to disillusion the OP, but don't assume if you get mandarin onto frozen, even with a mandarin diner, that this is enough to guarantee long term success. People forget that a large mandarin is bigger than say a slender wrasse. You'd be surprised at how many other fish would clean out his diner...IME this included firefish, a cunning flame angel who tan failed the entrance of the diner to get food out, a blenny etc...

The reason why people usually recommend a large tank with lots of rock and few pod eaters, is because the odds of long term success is high. There are alternative methods that can work, but when they don't the fish slowly starves. So, in short, my advice is upgrade if you want long term success. Alternately, find one eating frozen and keep it on its own to ensure he gets plenty to eat.

HTH and good luck! :wavehand:

Thanks, my original intent was to experiment with growing my own pods. I did a read up on it recently, and it seems very straight forward. This pod growing has no correlation to whether or not ill try a mandarin. I merely wanted to visit the idea of it to see if most mandarin keepers did actually cultivate their own pods to redose their system. It seems most just either buy pods every once in awhile or have a mandarin that also eats frozen stuff.

With a tank your size, I think culturing pods is a requirement if your going to have any success.

As others have mentioned though, to get 99% success, you're going to need a larger system with more live rock.

Sent from my future self.

Thats what im thinking and leaning towards. As i mentioned, growing pods will probably be in my future. Just for the heck of it, and a mandarin only if i upgrade tanks.

 

[tektite]

I've got a pair of large very fat green mandarins in my 90 gallon macroalgae tank. Best possible environment for them. If you're looking to cater a tank toward mandarins I highly suggest looking into a macro tank. Not only do a lot of larger pods eat the macroalgae, but the finer macros like hair algae even are an awesome pod breeding ground. My pair is very happy, mate almost every night.

 

[Subw00er]

Get a hob fuge from CPR and stock it with reef pods+ or reef cleaners pods, or both! Add some cheato for them to live in and some dts phtoplankton a 2-3 times a week. They will also munch on soft macro like ulva. I've been doing this for the last year and my mandarin is nice and fat.

Btw the reason the CPR is superior for pod growth is that it gently overflows back into the tank, and theyre not getting chewed up in a pump filter on their way back to the display. I have a 50g with a CPR large hob fuge.

 

[stlcard]

I've got a pair of large very fat green mandarins in my 90 gallon macroalgae tank. Best possible environment for them. If you're looking to cater a tank toward mandarins I highly suggest looking into a macro tank. Not only do a lot of larger pods eat the macroalgae, but the finer macros like hair algae even are an awesome pod breeding ground. My pair is very happy, mate almost every night.

would you mind posting a pic of your macro tank? Thanks.

 

[tektite]

Its gone through a number of evolutions over the years Macro tanks are constantly changing.

 

[stlcard]

Its gone through a number of evolutions over the years Macro tanks are constantly changing.

Thats awesome. I love the red macro, what kind is that? How do you attach them when you get them?

 

[tektite]

Some can be attached with superglue like corals, others are best loosely zip-tied and then the zip tie can be superglued where you want it to stay.

The main red ones are Halymenia, Botryocladia, and red Gracilaria.