any of you have a mandarin?

[8965]

i'm a newbie looking to own a mandarin in the next 8 weeks or so. is this a difficult fish to take care of? is it reef and invert safe?

 

[revhtree]

It is reef and invert safe, but I have heard they are very difficult to keep. They feed on live things in the sand and lr such as pods, and worms. If you dont have an established tank, and a way to keep your pod population up, the it will starve to death.

PS. I was very tempted to buy one today, but used my better judgment, and passed the little beauty up.

 

[Fishboy-from-NY]

Mandarin are very hard to keep alive, unless you have an establish tank about 2 years old and tons of live rock sine they have a strict diet.

 

[lando]

I do not think 40 lbs of LR will be enough to sustaina manderin. Bump up the LR and let your tank mature for a year or so before considering this fish.

 

[electrikat]

I have two. A green mandarin and a target mandarin(green with circle spots). My tank is a year old and covered in pods. However, I had two previously in the tank when it was about 3 months old,(died of ich). The two I have now were kept in a qt for two weeks with no lr and I fed them invertebrate banquet because it sinks to the substrate. I actually saw them eating it. But, they are mostly pod eaters and I don't think they could survive long term on regular food.

 

[Atari]

I would say skip it unless you are really serious in which case you will need to setup a refugium to maintain the pod population.

 

[philly]

whats a refugium?

 

[lando]

Philly, a refugium is the up and coming new idea for biological filtration for your tank. Think of it as a little tank filtering your display tank. It is like a sump in the fact that it is ussually under the main tank, water goes through the overflow on the tank into the fuge where it gets filtered and is then pumped back into the display tank. The fuge is filled with LS, LR and variousplant life like mangroves or something. It does require lighting for everything to grow. Just a brief explaination but HTH...Lando

 

[Atari]

In it's simplest form it's just another tank connected to your main tank. The type lando talked about is a great use for a fuge as it reduces nitrates to virtually nil and if you do reverse lighting it will also keep your pH constant. I think the name refugium comes from the fact that it was first used to just keep certain species safe from predators in the main tank.

 

[XLingad]

i've had a mandarin goby before. all they want to eat is anything alive. i bought him when i first started the tank too, so that was just a big mistake on my part. i had to keep buying live brine shrimp for it to eat. and frozen brine shrimp doesn't work. the mandarin only wanted to eat it if he saw food swimming a bit.

 

[X the Outsider]

I've talked to one person who said his ate frozen food. But thats the only one that I've heard survive on that type of food. You might want to think twice on getting one. I know I saw one today at a LFS, and asked about it. But it wasn't feeding yet.

 

[afilter]

OK, today I added a piece of LR to my system because the anenome I wanted was firmly attached. 8) In addition to the 5 crabs and 2 snails hitchhiking I noticed tons of white dots (I assume pods).

When I closely inspected my tank I noticed tons of them on the back glass and rock throughout the tank. Assuming these are copepods how many is enough to support a Mandarin or scooter? I too made the mistake of getting one early on before I knew better.

I gave up hope on this occurring because I thought high light was required to produce pods and I have at best 1.5 WPG. Once started do they continue to propagate on their own or is there something special that need to be done to keep them going?

TIA,

 

[indy]

The white dots are likely small tube worms. They'll grow all over the place including your glass, the reproduce like crazy. Dragonettes will not eat these. Copepods are minute and difficult to see, amphipods are larger bug like looking guys. None of these require any light to reproduce, but I believe they will do so faster if they have a regular photoperiod. There is no wattage requirement for this, just light and dark.

 

[afilter]

So assuming they are worms and not pods are they good bad or indifferent? I did notice my emerald crab seemes to be picking at them last night.

A post above stated Madarins eats worms are these just not the type they eat?

Thanks,

 

[indy]

Live sand may have baby worms living in it, so they may get eaten. But I wouldn't consider them to be an actual part of their diet. I'd call the tube worms indifferent. They are filter feeders, but I don't think they eat enough of anything to be beneficial. They are a sign that the tank is maturing if they reproduce readily, but that's about it.