I am in the process of setting up a 120g tank with 150 #s of live rock and a 40g sump. After the tank has matured for about a year, would it be of sufficient size to keep a pair of mandarins? I obviously will not get them until I have a huge supply of pods but I am wondering if this is enough to support a pair of them. I have never had one before and plan on at least getting one eventually.
Will my setup be enough for a pair of mandarins?
- Thread starter LSUJosh
- Start date
ReeferBill
New member
Mandarins Survivability
Mandarins Survivability
I definitly think you will have no problems keeping a pair of mandys in your set up. They are awesome and fascinating fish. I currently have a red scooter in my 46 bow with a 38 gallon refugium with out any difficulties.I also have deep sand beds in both and around 100 # of live rock.Happy Reefing!!!!:dance:
Mandarins Survivability
I definitly think you will have no problems keeping a pair of mandys in your set up. They are awesome and fascinating fish. I currently have a red scooter in my 46 bow with a 38 gallon refugium with out any difficulties.I also have deep sand beds in both and around 100 # of live rock.Happy Reefing!!!!:dance:
I don't think I will, at the moment I am thinking I won't have the time for that. I would rather things just run their natural course. I would love to have a pair of them but I just want to make sure that if they never eat prepared food in their lives they will be ok. I have read many posts about them and I really just want some reassurance from some vets who have kept them for a while. Worst case scenario I only get one.
Jennifier615
New member
Some wrasses like the pajamas aka sixline are pod eaters. If you can throw some cheato and a light in your sump/overflows and take the refugium idea. My cheato is crawling with pods and my mandarin is almost a year old and fat as a pig.
Please excuse my mad typing skills while using my ANDROID tapatalk peeps!
Please excuse my mad typing skills while using my ANDROID tapatalk peeps!
Jennifier615
New member
I had a sixline as well as my mandarin. I had a bluejaw trigger that didn't like that idea and took care of it lol.........I was told that in a 135 with 150lbs liverock I should be fine, but just kinda watch to see if he's getting thin........pods live and breed in the rock and with all that space you should be fine. I was also told and read to make a small pile of reef rubble somewhere in the tank near a back corner or semi-well lighted area inside the tank where pods can breed and hide from a mandarin inside the pile's center and just from time to time shoot some mysis in there and your pod population will always be adequate. I kinda have this idea on one side of my tank of some old broken pieces of frogspawn branches that I broke up and stacked in a corner.....he swarms around it on a regular basis, but he can't get down inside it and when I look it is always crawling with pods 
small alien
The fungus is among us.
Scooters are much easier than mandarins.
NatureNerd
New member
Please elaborate. Easier to get on prepared foods? Hardier? What?
I hope this isn't too much of a tangent...
Thanks
Though you shouldnt have a problem with 2 I personally would get the ORA mandarins, especially if you are already feeding ova or spectrum. Because of the die off cycles that often occur with the pod population, it makes it nice to not have to worry about whether they will take to prepared food or not. It happened to me a while back and I was thankful that I had some ova ready.
small alien
The fungus is among us.
In my experience, scooters are much easier to get eating frozen foods with vigor. The ones I've had have all taken to mysis right away. I've tried training about 4 mandarins. I believe two were cyanide caught or had other issues because they died almost right away. The other two I got eating but over several months, it was apparent by their body weight they were not getting enough food and I rehomed them to larger tanks. I've kept scooters in 10 gallon tanks for over a year without issue.
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