Mandarins, are they really a difficult fish?

[Mitchell0605]

I think TC editted in the (actually Dragonets) part. lol At least they can breed them.

[mitton]

i've had a spotted manderin for about a year now, my tank is only 130L (UK size) i got home one day to find it my tank! my GF thought it would be a great addition to the tank but had no idea about them and how hard they were to keep.....i thought about taking it back but she was fantastically bright and settled in very quickly. she is one of a kind i think, she bullys the rest of them to get to the repared food and they others just get out of her way! its quite a site to see her moving around the tank at mach speed! she is about twice the size now as she was originally and am so glad I didnt take her back. they are fantastic fish as long as you rtan kis old/mature enough. i would recommend to anybody that knows what there doing!

I am extremely lucky that mine survives in such a small habitat!

only the other day she had a mouthful of bristleworm! took her a few attempts eating and spitting it back out but was all gone in the end

[thincat]

Very lucky guy. Good to read about success stories like that.

[reefmandan]

I guess I got lucky my mandarin was not to difficult. I dumped a bottle of live pods in my 6 month old 55 gal tank and another bottle in my new 120 gal tank that I tranfered everyone into and made sure there were plenty of places they could breed. I was a little concerned because she eats all day long but it worked out fine since she's a little sausage link now : ) How am I going to find a male bigger than she is?

I have noticed that she will eat brine shrimp to.

Do you think my tank could handle 2?
I have a 6 line wrasse too.

[thominil]

Get the female you have now eating entirely prepared foods such as mysis shrimp which are more nutritious than brine. Then you could set up a small 20-30g tank with sand and 10-20lbs. of live rock, grab a male mandarin and stick him in the small qt-like tank until he is grown to at least an equal or bigger size than the female. Dose the small tank with pods and try to train him to eat prepared too. When he is the size that you like, add him to the 120g. You would most likely want to pick one spot in the tank and stick a jar or another object that will hold food without the water blowing the container/food away and get the mandarins trained to go to that one spot for food. A mature 120g is fine for one mandarin on pods alone, 2 is extremely pushing it. The sixline probably grazes on some pods too, so having the mandarins primary diet be prepared foods, you would avoid the possible trouble of starvation. Hope this helps. Many other ways to do it, but this is just one that comes to mind.

[Mitchell0605]

Nice Thom.

[reefmandan]

Thanks Thom.

[ilostnemo]

my 55 would still be to small

[thincat]

ilostnemo, as a hobbiest any tank ends up being to small. lol

[cmor1701d]

ORA is now raising mandarins on prepared foods. They may already be for sale.

[thominil]

Apparently not until July if the guy on RC is right. Amazing though!

[cmor1701d]

That's not so long to wait. Maybe I'll get a male to add to my female.

[Mitchell0605]

Love at first sight hopefully.

[thincat]

Even if they become available in July, you still have to remember that they are very slow feeders and that must be taken into account.

[hartsafire]

I had a mandarin in with my erectus seahorses and he learned to eat frozen mysis along with the sh`s. An employee at the LFS told me if you put 2 in the same tank they will fight whether they are same sex or opposite.. Not sure how true that is though, I never tried it.

[thominil]

Not true provided they are the correct size.

[hartsafire]

thats good to know thominil, I really loved my mandarin. I will have another one when I set up another tank. So they both have to be the same size? How do you tell the males from females?

[thominil]

Males have a "spiked" dorsal fin (I think thats the right name for it, correct me if I'm wrong). Females have a kind of rounded dorsal fin. It's hard to define this in my opinion, maybe it's just me. Just google image the male and female and compare the fins and you'll see what I mean by spiked and rounded. You want the mandarins to be a different size and add them at least a month apart. HTH.

[hartsafire]

ok thanks for the help.

[Mitchell0605]

I'm assuming the Male should be bigger or does it not matter? And why the month?