Easton33 said:I personally think that the Mandarins aren't as difficult as they are made out to be. I got a green mandarin when my 28g nano was about 3-4 months old, way before the recommended time to get them. I supplied it with a pack of copepods and supplied my sixline wrasse with cyclopleeze, so the wrasse wouldn't eat so many copepods. Since then, everything has been absolutely great. Once again, I strongly disagree with the complaints of their hard keeping.
Andy Sager said:I knew I couldn't be the only one who had some success with this fish
The next big challenge, Juvenile Pinnatus Batfish?![]()
You can disagree...but it is a fact. Most folks cannot keep Dragonettes even a fraction of their true natural life span over the long term. A few months or a year doesn't really count.
I agree. For every person that is successful there are probably hundreds whose mandarin perish within the first year. I had one for ~6 years, about half of its expected life span in the wild.
andy sager said:so i gotta ask, did you know the age or your fish when you got it? If it were 6 years old when you got it then it lived it's entire expected lifespan. Just not all in your tank.
i used to raise monkeys. I got one that was running wild in fl and brought to the store i was working at. We took it to the vet and the vet estimated the animal to be 2 to 2 1/2 years old. I kept him for 21 more years. The average lifespan of that type of monkey is 20-25 years when in captivity. I understand that this may be the exception but if i had only kept him for 17 years, would his life had been shortchanged because he only made it to 19-19 1/2? What if the vet underestimated his age? Maybe he was older and i exceeded his average lifespan?
You see, you can't always blame the fish. Consider that most people don't buy smalls (juv.) because they are a bit harder to keep than adult fish, you don't know how old that adult fish is when you get it thereby making it impossible to say that keeping keeping the fish alive only a year or so is shortchanging the fish. You may have kept it alive a year longer than it would have survived out in the ocean.
Just another avenue to think about![]()
I know if he arrives starved at the LFS, or ends up starving in your tank...he didn't have a good life. From time to capture to the toilet was a downhill run. The odds are very much against him (or her). It is only a fish...but I know with my deep background in reef keeping and owning fish stores, that it is a fish beyond my current ability to keep to a healthy old age. This is with tens of thousands spent over decades. Unfortunately, for them, they are pretty cheap. So give it a whirl...just let us know how it goes.
cmor1701d said:@Andy, I only buy juvenile fish, so pretty much I know they are under a year when I get them. Well ok, the bicolor blenny I just got is just under full grown size so it may be 2 years old.
The problem is pretty much as you stated. MOST people do not do the research, or create an environment that will allow this magnificent fish to thrive. Then there is the large group that reads about someone keeping one in a 28 gallon aquarium and thinks they can do it too.
Those are the types of attitudes that give the industry a bad name and legislative calls for the banning of exporting or importing ornamental fish. Hawaii is at it again, and there is a good chance it may pass this time.
carey said:Thanks Greg, appreciate the compliment.
i also like to post in this thread so that people will maybe understand how much hard work it was and still is to keep one healthy and happy. It's a daily effort on my part, I can't even imagine going on vacation or anything like that as I would freak out if I couldnt' keep my eye on my tanks.
I also understand some of the posters that have had "sucess" with keeping theirs with no apparent effort by them. In my opinion, as with everything in saltwater, this will catch up to them one day. It always does in aquaria, you can only get away with soo much for so long.
Just my thoughts and opinions everyone, agree or disagree.
one more note, I'm not sure "I got away" with it exactly. I did everything I could possibly do to keep one. i bought an ORA one, one that was picking at frozen food at the LFS, a nice healthy specimen that looked good with good color and behavior and had the LFS quarantine them for me. Had plenty of pods in my tank, about 50lbs of live rock in a 29g tank, a fuge with cheato and I supplemented the pods in the fuge every few months until I bought the fish.
I guess the bottom line is I jumped through soo many hoops to make this sucessful and it could have still turned out badly in a heartbeat. It still may. Despite my tremendous efforts it still may result in the fish dying earlier than it would have. THIS is what you have to consider when thinking about getting one.![]()
This is my point exactly. We need to show more dedication to keeping species alive and well, rather than just trashing ornamental fish. Some folks have a cavalier attitude, when a fish dies, we will just get another one. If you are not striving to keep fish and corals you know you can keep alive, rather than wishing it was so, you become part of the problem. As a diver I see these fish in their natural environment. That makes it much harder to rationalize that what I am doing is okay when I collect a fish. So when I hear about the tang in the nano cube, or the Mandarine in the 1 year old tank...I get cranky.
I have known personally and had the pleasure of interacting with the real pros on this forum. All of you guys (and gals) have a pretty simple philosophy that I had to kind of invent for myself years ago. And by reading as much as I could. Keeping it simple. What we now do easily was very hard not that long ago. The hobby is light years from where it was. Remember, fresh water aquariums and ponds go back to the Romans. Saltwater...what...maybe 50 years? Within a few years you will be able to buy "Mandarine Feast" pods in cryo-suspension that are irresistible to any Mandarine. Or something like it...