Mandarins, are they really a difficult fish?

[Gti_Leo]

no problem

[Smithcinema]

Back to mandarins purchased mine about 2 weeks ago (online ) lol he is doing great , his color is fantastic and nice and plump he is all over the tank picking of of the rock work but he don't eat with the other fish hope he starts eating soon the tank he's in has only been up for 3 months

[cmor1701d]

Back ON TOPIC - YAY. Sorry, I really should have split the lfs vs. online to a separate thread.

Glad to hear that it is still doing great, but in an 80 gallon tank with LR and good pod population I doubt you will wean the mandarin off live food. By now the pod population should be stable and capable of supplying it with food. You should also create a pod pile as a breeding area in the tank or sump.

Mandarins don't eat with other fish. They are slow deliberate hunters. Other fish will always out compete a mandarin for food unless they are trained. Even then there are too many anecdotal stories of mandarins suddenly no longer eating frozen.

The methods and science for feeding mandarins are changing, and for those who are truly dedicated to keeping this fish alive in an environment incapable of meeting its normal feeding demands, they may live a long life.

I have not seen proof of that yet. In the meantime many people hear about these cutting edge methods, don't dedicate the necessary time and the fish perishes.

[Gti_Leo]

i've heard of using live brine shrimp then slowly mixing frozen with the live and then mixing a bit of mysis with it. i would probably end up thawing out the frozen and then soak it in garlic juice so that it has a similar smell and taste so if i wanted to get them on to pellets i could do the same

[cmor1701d]

Live brine have very little nutritional value unless you gut load them with Selcon or similar. The weaning instructions as I recall from Coral Magazine were to place the mandarin in a netted enclosure so that the current flowing through it pushed the gut loaded brine along with the frozen against one end where the mandarin could go hunt and peck for food. Some of ti would be frozen instead of live and eventually the fish would develop a taste for it.

But if you have a pod population why in the world would the mandarin even consider anything else?

[Gti_Leo]

well thats the thing i have a 26g and i would want to put a mandarin, i just bout an HOB fuge and would liek to start growing pods in it to feed a mandarin but i'm not sure how long a 4 gallon refugium would keep a manadrin going for so i would like to get it to eat prepared food mainly mysis shrimp because there is more of a nutritional value to it, i also feed NLS pellets so i would liek to get it to eat those also

[Gregcoyote]

I've tried for over 20 years to keep them alive for at least half their natural lifespan and have failed every time even with a robust pod population, I will watch with interest the progress here as I also love these fish.

[Gti_Leo]

exactly why i would want to try and keep one, they are so beautiful its so hard to resist not wantign to try.

how long have you kept them alive greg?

[Gregcoyote]

About a year. I got so depressed when they died that I vowed to never buy any again. It is why I have been such a pain to the new forum members that announce they have added mandarins to their two week old system. IMO they shouldn't even be collected as I would bet 99.9% of them die an early death.

[Gti_Leo]

and its a shame that they do but are you sure yours died from being ill nourished?

[Gregcoyote]

Yes, I am pretty sure, but not positive. They just slowly got skinny and finally died. Pods all over the place. They continuously hunted and looked fine until the end.

[Andy Sager]

I know they will probably be a bit more expensive but... I read a while back that ORA was producing Mandarins that were eating prepared foods before they went to market. Anyone have any success with these?

[carey]

I have an ORA blue mandarin and she didn't touch pellets. She actually didn't eat anything but pods. Took me about a month of a lot of work and time but now she eats most anything frozen. She especially likes blood worms

[Gti_Leo]

aybe it wasn't really an ORA manadrin. maybe it was sold as one by the LFS or sold to the LFS as one but was never a true ORA, either way i'm glad to hear that it is not eatign everything

[carey]

Thanks. Actually she is an ora, I was there when the order came in and picked out my fish for him to qt for me.

[Andy Sager]

Today's hobbyists have such an upper hand that we hobbyists who have been around awhile never had... Tank Raised Fish. I remember when the first TR clowns were made available. They were small, poorly colored, and didn't really act like a wild clownfish. Now there are sooo many varieties that are being tank raised and they are gorgeous!!! You should be taking advantage of this opportunity because it helps make fish keeping so much easier. It also helps reduce the overfishing problem of the oceans. The trickle down effects of not needing collectors to collect a particular type of fish helps that specie survive and rebound in it's natural habitat. I think that result alone is worth the extra costs for TR fish.

If you add up the money one spends on "risky" fish, you'd see that they are spending way more money not being successful than they would have if the they bought 1 tank raised speciman that is sure to be less risky. Over the years, fish keeping has become more expensive because it has become more advanced. Today's hobbyists have new technologies that we pioneers were first discovering were needed. My fish survived many years because I recreated the ocean in my tanks. My tanks were dirty looking, filled with algae, had fewer fish and required a lot of upkeep. The reward for having my tanks this way was water that was as pure as the ocean. My fish were rarely sick and lived for a long time. In today's hobby, to acheive this water quality without the "ugly, natural look" takes work and machines. So you should be spending your money on the mechanics to make the best possible environment and not on "risky" fish.

So to sum this all up, if you are having problems keeping wild Mandarins, buy the tank raised ones!!!

Thanks for the forum to say my piece

[carey]

I bought an ORA mandarin myself. She didn't eat prepared foods like promised but after a month of working on it she has taken to it. Now she loves bloodworms and brine. I hope to have this fish for as long as possible and I think I have a pretty good shot at it. It does take dedication though, and well, so does most other things in sw. lol It's just a matter of how much effort one want to put into it.

[cmor1701d]

@Andy, thanks for your postings. Yes it is more important than ever to buy TR as laws are being proposed to outlaw wild collection. Hawaii is at it again. We also need to support Net Capture programs that give nets to the local collectors and teach them how to use them so we get healthier livestock.

I lost my Mandarin after 7 years and have not replaced it yet. There would be months when I did not see it and then all of a sudden it came out from behind rocks one night to feed. So if you have a large tank with enough LR to sustain one, you may not see it all that often. I also used to refresh my detrivores every year with new kits from different places to maintain diversity.

[Gregcoyote]

Originally Posted by cmor1701d

@Andy, thanks for your postings. Yes it is more important than ever to buy TR as laws are being proposed to outlaw wild collection. Hawaii is at it again. We also need to support Net Capture programs that give nets to the local collectors and teach them how to use them so we get healthier livestock.

I lost my Mandarin after 7 years and have not replaced it yet. There would be months when I did not see it and then all of a sudden it came out from behind rocks one night to feed. So if you have a large tank with enough LR to sustain one, you may not see it all that often. I also used to refresh my detrivores every year with new kits from different places to maintain diversity.

You are the record holder IMO. 7 years is quite an accomplishment. You must have one heck of a reef. I have many fish almost 10 years old, but never got close to that with a Mandarin. As a diver that has spent some time with tangs in the wild, I am torn by my desire as a aquarist and my desire to see animals not taken from the wild. I think, like coral fragging, we will see more of the wholesalers capturing thousands of larval fish and growing them out. As in the wild that is about a 1000 to 1 chance of survival at that stage (or more) the wild population isn't affected.

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by carey

It does take dedication though, and well, so does most other things in sw. lol It's just a matter of how much effort one want to put into it.

...you only knew half of what I've gone through lol
Truth is, if you set up the system correctly at first, you would not have as much work to maintain the tank. My philosophy: The less you mess, the better the success!!!

As for your ORA mandarin not taking prepared food, did you try using the food that ORA was feeding them? If you didn't, WHY NOT??? They obviously must have been eating something or else they wouldn't have survived at ORA. You should have contacted ORA and found out what they were using and then used it. It really is that simple.
Glad you did get it to eat something tho. That's also proof that they aren't such a weak fish after all