14 Gal Bio Cube update and Mandarin

[acmefish]

Hi everyone,

 

So this is my bio cube, it's been running for about 3-4 months now and everything is going great nothing bad has happened yet except that Bicolor Dottyback I used to have killed about six shrimp at first I didn't know what was going on and after doing more research I discovered the killer. So I took him back to the store and traded him in. My clown fish are hosting which is great and I am very excited.

 

Two days ago I was at the fish store. And did something very bad on impulse, I purchased a Green Mandarin. I know for a fact that I have Copepods in my tank but I don't think it's enough to sustain him for a long. I am the type of person that is always willing to pay for my mistakes and I mean that literally. I ordered about $90 worth of Copepods as well as a 3 gallon tank to start a little pod farm. The Mandarin is the most incredible fish I have ever seen in my life he reminds me a little bit of a Muppet. As soon as I got him home I started reading and from what I understand they can be trained to eat frozen food, so I started training the same day. The next morning I called the store and asked them if they had any live brine shrimp but they said they would not be in until Tuesday, so I had to do something I took a cup added some salt water and put two small pieces mysis and brine shrimp frozen and began target feeding. My clown fish were very excited about the whole process. On the first day I couldn't tell if he was eating when I was feeding him or just looking for copepods as I did not see him put anything into his mouth. But today for the first time I was so excited to see him eating. When I was target feeding him mysis at first he would put them in his mouth and then spit them out but after a few minutes he began to swallow them. I am still really nervous as it doesn't seem that he is as interested in me feeding him as he is in hunting. I'm wondering if it's going to get better over time? My pods should be here on Tuesday. Hopefully that will help because his tummy is still a little tucked in not as bad as the day I got him from the pet store but I still would like to have a chubby healthy Mandarin. I am going to be doing a water change every few days as it does seem to be adding a lot of extra food into my system. I am wondering if target feeding once a day is enough? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[uwwmatt]

Unfortunately I have no experience with Mandarins, but it is never a good idea to purchase livestock that you can't possibly provide with its minimum requirements. Think of it this way, if I put you in my linen closet I could probably keep you alive for a long time, but my guess is you would not like it.

 

Anyways if you continue to insist on doing this make sure you watch your levels very closely, and consider doing a fuge mod to allow for a slightly more sustainable pod supply. You have to be very dedicated because if you start getting lax with your feeding and water changes you will end up with a ton of algae.

 

If you are doing multiple water changes a week you run the risk of crashing your tank and forcing it to cycle all over again.

 

I have heard that Mandarins are jumpers so you may want to consider putting something to stop it from jumping into your rear chambers.

[oh my fraggin gosh!]

I think it's fine. People buy copepods in a bottle and feed them out of a bottle. There's nothign wrong with that as long as you get them trained in doing it. Good for you - Next time just stay away from impulse buys because you won't be so lucky next time :-p

[acmefish]

Unfortunately I have no experience with Mandarins, but it is never a good idea to purchase livestock that you can't possibly provide with its minimum requirements. Think of it this way, if I put you in my linen closet I could probably keep you alive for a long time, but my guess is you would not like it.

 

Anyways if you continue to insist on doing this make sure you watch your levels very closely, and consider doing a fuge mod to allow for a slightly more sustainable pod supply. You have to be very dedicated because if you start getting lax with your feeding and water changes you will end up with a ton of algae.

 

If you are doing multiple water changes a week you run the risk of crashing your tank and forcing it to cycle all over again.

 

I have heard that Mandarins are jumpers so you may want to consider putting something to stop it from jumping into your rear chambers.

 

Fish don't have fillings like people, you're right if you put me in a closet I would definitely be unhappy but mostly it would be because I would be thinking what I could do or what I could have become which would bring me to feel anxiety which at that point would make me ill. Fish do not become ill because of feelings otherwise we would not keep them in small aquariums or even in big ones that would make us torturers. As fish would be dreaming about swimming in the big ocean. You just cannot compare the human psyche to a fish. But thank you for the advice about the tank I did have a slight algae problem. I hope it doesn't get any worse. I don't really know if it's going to be a good idea to modify my biocube when I talked to the guy at the fish store he said as long as I replaced my bio balls once in awhile I'll be okay so far so good.

 

Cool Cat! Thank you, I think I'll do fine just like you said or at least I hope so. The only real concern I have is that he seems more interested in hunting for now. The nice thing is that he does get curious when I'm target feeding he comes to see the clowns get really excited about the food and then begins nibbling as to join in the fun.

[BKtomodachi]

It already has the telltale signs of being at the edge of death- you can see the lateral internal structure sticking out of its side. Once this is very pronounced, I haven't seen them come back very often at all. I have heard from several places that bloodworms often entice them to eat prepared foods. I would not recommend this food as a long term source, but it could be a start for getting them to eat prepared foods.

[uwwmatt]

Fish don't have fillings like people

This is a pretty antiquated view of looking at things.

 

Fish can certainly get stressed, from improper living conditions, and while they may not spend their evening reflecting on this fact, they most certainly show signs of their unhappiness.

 

I agree that a tank of any size is no substitute for the ocean, but we can do our part to make captivity as easy as possible by not introducing species into our tanks that have already established histories and needs which we cannot meet. Unfortunately this fact is most often learned the hard way, at the expense of our fish/inverts/corals.

[Aelvion]

Take him back to the LFS you bought him from. He will never survive.

Did the LFS know the size tank you were putting him in? If so, I wouldnt do business with them anymore.

[acmefish]

Take him back to the LFS you bought him from. He will never survive.

Did the LFS know the size tank you were putting him in? If so, I wouldnt do business with them anymore.

Why so he can die there? Really now... I am asking for advice not a lecture or at least if you do lecture give some useful advice to go with it. I know your starting to fill like this should be a fish rights topic but its not, just want to see if someone that knows about Mandarins can tell if the behaviors are on the right track. Never survive? Hmm.. now you really got me motivated. Thanks

[DylanE]

haha, people are such idealists its hilarious... sounds good that you are managing to get him to eat, i've even heard of them being trained enough to eat formula 1 pellets, so have faith! good looking fish.

[Cedar]

There's a wonderfully informative topic about Mandarins and training them to eat in the Fish Forum. Let me go dig it up.

 

EDIT: Here you go!

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=170191

[JustReef]

There's a wonderfully informative topic about Mandarins and training them to eat in the Fish Forum. Let me go dig it up.

 

EDIT: Here you go!

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=170191

 

+1 Read the post and listen to SeeDemTails.

 

I think half the trick of keeping a Mandarin is to find one that's not already starving to death. If you need brine shrimp, pick up a brine shrimp hatchery. I think it costs about $10 and is really simple. It's also just a nice thing to have around when you have a fish that won't eat.

[[WDT]TardFarmer]

The poster above was right improperly sized tanks can cause a lot of stress and will kill them. Mention that you have a tang in a tank smaller than a 75 gallon and the tang police will be knocking at your door with guns drawn. I have read of people keeping mandarins in nano's however. Build a fuge asap in one of your chambers and get some chaeto in there. It's good you ordered some pods, if you can get a sustainable pod farm going you might be allright. Try a brine shrimp hatchery also just for filler, maybe fill up the fry on selcon before feeding so there are nutrients in it. There is a good article on feeding mandarins frozen lemme seeif I can find it..

 

http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

[davidncbrown]

Take him back to the LFS you bought him from. He will never survive.

Did the LFS know the size tank you were putting him in? If so, I wouldnt do business with them anymore.

 

My LFS gets mandarins in all the time and they aren't fed anything special at the store. The tank they are in has NO copepods and I have never seen them eat prepared foods there. Assuming your LFS is like mine they would rather get the mandarin in and sell it before it dies. They don't have the means nor the want to keep alive a tank of mandarins, otherwise they would have hundreds of pounds of live rock in a ginormous fuge to sustain the pods. My point is, taking it back to the LFS would probably be worse than keeping him in your tank unless they take special consideration for feeding the little guy. Just keep trying to get him to eat. Try roti-feast or dt's oyster eggs if you cant get him to eat anything big. I went through the mandarin blues when mine died and I tried EVERYTHING i could think of. He never took anything prepared except once he was interested in roti-feast, and a couple times he sucked the oyster eggs off the live rock, but it was too late for him at this point. Good luck!

[acmefish]

My LFS gets mandarins in all the time and they aren't fed anything special at the store. The tank they are in has NO copepods and I have never seen them eat prepared foods there. Assuming your LFS is like mine they would rather get the mandarin in and sell it before it dies. They don't have the means nor the want to keep alive a tank of mandarins, otherwise they would have hundreds of pounds of live rock in a ginormous fuge to sustain the pods. My point is, taking it back to the LFS would probably be worse than keeping him in your tank unless they take special consideration for feeding the little guy. Just keep trying to get him to eat. Try roti-feast or dt's oyster eggs if you cant get him to eat anything big. I went through the mandarin blues when mine died and I tried EVERYTHING i could think of. He never took anything prepared except once he was interested in roti-feast, and a couple times he sucked the oyster eggs off the live rock, but it was too late for him at this point. Good luck!

Thank you I am doing my best, I work from home so I have a lot time for my pets. Oyster eggs? Where can I get them? My LFS told me that they will be getting this> http://www.vividaquariums.com/10Expand.asp...Code=02-9002-10 next week. Is that the same thing?

So I have some good news! So target feeding was just not going to good as my Clownfish would eat most of the food very fast. I had seen a video on bottle training mandarins and its working. Here are some pics and a video I made. I think he was a little nervous that I was looking at him eating.

< I just put it up so it may take a few min before you can see it.

[biocube8]

When I first started reefin a year ago,I was sold a mandarin by someone who had no clue about them.(I didnt either at the time)Needless to say he died before I could figure out what was happening.

I finally found very good salt water store and was angry to learn that they recommend 1 mandarine per 100 gallons!They eat such a huge amount of pods,you need a big breeding population.

I learned the hard way.BTW I dont deal with the bonehead who sold me that fish anymore!