When are you ready for a Mandarin?

[baron1282]

I keep wanting a Mandarin, but I am always holding off. I hear your tank has to be established for a while before one can be introduced into your tank.

My 55 gallon has been up for four months now, but the majority of my tank was in a 29 gallon 6 months before that. My aquarium sand and rock is almost a year old!

However! I am going to be upgrading once again to a 120 gallon at the end of next month. I already got the tank, I am just waiting to pay it off and fix up the stand a little.

The process will be the same as what I did with my last transfer. I am not going to rinse the sand out that I will be taking from my 55. I will stir it up a lot to get all the gas out of it before transferring it over on top of the new sand I will buy. It's 90 pounds of live sand, and I am going to buy two bags of 30 pounds of regular sand. I have about 80 pounds of live rock, I am going to add a few more pounds of rock (Not live) to make it live rock eventually. Being I got so much live rock, I really don't want to spend the money for more live rock.

The last point I will make! At night when I shine a light on my tank to look at it. I see so much small creatures running around my rock, and some even swimming around. There seems to be so much more life in my tank at night, than during the day. Is this the food the Mandarin eats? I don't know what they are, but their just really small and FAST creatures running around my rock, sand, and even my glass. I am assuming their a good sign!

I don't want to loss all that life by rinsing out my sand when I do the transfer.
So would my 120 gallon tank be ready for a Mandarin, Or do I need to wait again?

Sorry for the LONG post!

 

[Tkey3425]

If you plan to transfer tank then i would wait to get the mandarin after the tank switch. If i am correct, and i may not be, a mandarin will wipe a pod population in a 55 out rather quickly and starve unless you have a really good fuge setup for them to reproduce.

 

[huma-huma]

Just buy a bottle of pods and call it a day. Id add a bottle of pods every month or so just to be sure. Make sure you set up the filtration so that theres a refugium for pods. This will help you to sustain a decent sized pod population

 

[Tkey3425]

Just buy a bottle of pods and call it a day. Id add a bottle of pods every month or so just to be sure. Make sure you set up the filtration so that theres a refugium for pods. This will help you to sustain a decent sized pod population

+1 sorry i was more leaning towards the self sustaining system for pods but the manual addition of pods every so often will keep a mandarin fed.

 

[woody390]

Yeah id agree with the above if you are transfering soon then don't add new fish as it will just cause more hassle during the transfer and any transfer will be stress for the fish. and it's not so much an established tank that is needed just and established pod supply so as with the above buy some pods to add for the first few months maybe and in a 120 by the time you have done that for a few months you should have enought o sustain a mandarin

 

[baron1282]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I am adding any fish. I won't be adding any fish until I am done with the upgrade and transfer.

Would a Mandarin even be ok in my tank with the tank mates I have and planning on?

What I have already

1. Flame Hawkfish
1. Coral Beauty
1. Yellow Tang
1. Yellow Eye Tang
1. Blue Spotted Puffer

What I plan on adding so far!

1. Striped Squirrelfish
1. Six Line Wrasse (had one, but he jumped out).
1. Christmas Wrasse
1. One Spot Foxface
1. Mandarin

I was also thinking about throwing in about 6 or 7 Blue Green Reef Chromis for a small school.

That would be the stock list for my 120 gallon. I am hoping everything would get a long and not kill one another.

 

[Lance75]

I added one about a year and a half ago with a tank full of fishes. He still lives and eat well. I never add any pods, and I see him came out to eat when I feed the other fishes.

 

[Sniperhank]

Avoid the 6 line wrasse with a mandarin. Both pickers and pod consumers. Wrasse is much faster and will starve out the mandarin.

In terms of the upgraded size, you'll have an easier time with the mandarin in the 120 than the 55. It is possible to keep one in a 55, as I have for almost a year now, but mine eats mysis along with pod snacks making it easily possible.

I would simply set up the 120 and seed it heavily with pods before adding the mandarin. That way the population will start establishing itself in the system before it can get decimated. A sump/refugium or even a HOB refugium just for pod production is also in your best interest to keep the population reproducing safely.

 

[woody390]

Yeah def wouldn't put 6 line with mandarin seen a fair few threads on here with the 6 line picking on the mandarin

 

[baron1282]

Hmm, now you guys are making me pick. :-/

Six Line or the Mandarin. They wouldn't be fine in a big tank together? If they had their space?

 

[Sniperhank]

This isn't about them picking on each other. This is about the wrasse out competing the mandarin for food and the mandarin starving.

 

[baron1282]

Oh. So would the Christmas Wrasse do the same thing?

 

[Sniperhank]

It will eat fireworms and pyramidellid snails, protecting corals and clams. In addition, it may eat feather dusters, wild shrimp, tubeworms, and flatworms. It may also eat parasites off of tank mates. The Christmas Wrasse diet should include vitamin enriched frozen mysis shrimp, vitamin enriched frozen brine shrimp, and other meaty foods along with a high quality marine flake and marine pellet food.

Direct from Liveaquaria's website. This makes me wonder why it is listed as fish only rather than reef...not friendly to shrimp I guess.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Mandarins are very slow deliberate feeders that eat hundreds, maybe thousands of pods a day. They don't need any competition from faster pod eaters like wrasses. People either seem to keep them without any major effort and some can't keep them no matter what. I fear they have a huge mortality rate in the hobby.

 

[baron1282]

Well, I want a Six Line Wrasse again! So the Mandarin is out. :-( It's sucks, but thanks for the heads up! I am not trying to be in the business of killing fish!

 

[Gregcoyote]

Nobody thought that at all. The wrasse is easier to keep IMO.

 

[baron1282]

I didn't mean to imply that you guys thought that! I meant it as a thank you! I don't want anymore of my fish to die.

I paid a lot of money for my fish! I would hate to lose them! Plus I really care about their well being. I want to get them as big as I see them in some pet stores! I saw one Six Line Wrasse that was 7 years old and huge! I would love to get that kind of size and years out of my fish!

 

[bettaowner]

I like the mandarin fish but in this case I'm supporting the wrasse only because it has a greater chance of survival,