lgreen's Mandarin FAQ

[javisaman]

Had my mandarin for two years. Unlike some other success stories, mine ate nothing but frozen brine shrimp (and only 1 brand/type - ocean nutrition "super shrimp" something or another ). From what I could tell this diet was NOT sufficient. Though it ate regularly, the fish did lose a lot of weight. However, I did find recent success with ocean nutrition formula 1 small pellets. It only eats fresh pellets though.

[Michelle s]

Had my mandarin for two years. Unlike some other success stories, mine ate nothing but frozen brine shrimp (and only 1 brand/type - ocean nutrition "super shrimp" something or another ). From what I could tell this diet was NOT sufficient. Though it ate regularly, the fish did lose a lot of weight. However, I did find recent success with ocean nutrition formula 1 small pellets. It only eats fresh pellets though.

Just ordered a red mandarin dragonet for my jbj 28 gal LED. Tank cycled for 6 weeks, steady now and this is my first fish! Snails and hermit crabs added 10 days ago.

 

Liveaquaria says dragonets will eat live brine shrimp. I am also considering Zooplanktos-M as well.

 

This thread is very helpful.

[howze01]

I am cycling my new 30g reef now but eventually I want to add a Mandarin. I have seen Amphipod breeding kits for sale. Will they eat Amphipods too as well as Copepods? From what I have read, they don't look at all hard to grow. Could I grow Copepods and Amphipods together?

[19jeffro83]

I am cycling my new 30g reef now but eventually I want to add a Mandarin. I have seen Amphipod breeding kits for sale. Will they eat Amphipods too as well as Copepods? From what I have read, they don't look at all hard to grow. Could I grow Copepods and Amphipods together?

Im pretty sure that they eat amphipods. I've seen mine take much larger pieces of mysis.

[javisaman]

Copepods are easier to grow and don't get as large as amphipods, when large enough are no longer useful for mandarins.

 

I've had mine for 2 years and 1 month now. It's finally taken to eating marine pellets with a gusto. I've found that giving it an "appetizer" like sally's blood worms brightwells vitamin-m and garlic powder right before i feed pellets to the rest of the tank works best.

[drgreenz]

I've been reefing for 6 years with multiple tanks now and the one key i have found throughout all of em and with all my friend's as well is Chaetomorpha macro algea(the spaghetti algea). The kind that grows into balls of string. It has to be watched and trimmed every now and then but it helps to act as a filter, and i have yet to find a better nursury for pods. My scooter usually just cruises a 5in chunk i got. when i first got him he was way malnurished and plain black and white, now he is a fatty and has tons of gold and reds in him. But with Chaetomorpha, the fish can only hit the outside 1/4 inch or so.

[coralfun21]

Lol, this thread is still missing the most important information. Maybe Tails should just write it up and have it pasted in here?

 

 

I am an inexperienced reefer, but love the mandarin and would like to add one to my 3 gallon tank. It would be the only fish, along with a few corals. I am planning to set up a refugium to keep a copepod population going. I am also hoping to feed a variety of food, as others have mentioned training their mandarins. Currently I am working on setting up a 30 gallon tank and plan to move the mandarin once it is too big for the 3 gallon. My only concern is that I will have other fish in the 30 gallon that will compete for food and the mandarin may not get enough food (if it lives to move out of my 3 gallon). I am taking time to look into this so that I provide a good environment for my mandarin.

[javisaman]

3 gallons is waaaay too small for 99.99999% of any reef fish, let alone a mandarin. Set up the 30 gallon first, then we'll talk .

[gdlyorchi]

I am an inexperienced reefer, but love the mandarin and would like to add one to my 3 gallon tank. It would be the only fish, along with a few corals. I am planning to set up a refugium to keep a copepod population going. I am also hoping to feed a variety of food, as others have mentioned training their mandarins. Currently I am working on setting up a 30 gallon tank and plan to move the mandarin once it is too big for the 3 gallon. My only concern is that I will have other fish in the 30 gallon that will compete for food and the mandarin may not get enough food (if it lives to move out of my 3 gallon). I am taking time to look into this so that I provide a good environment for my mandarin.

NO WAY!!!!!! I love this fish alot and I would hate you so much if you do this it doesent matter how small the mandaring fish is it would not survive on a 3g THATS NUTS!!!! , I have start to seed my 29g with copepods (a months ago) and I still have a long way to go to have a good copepod population that be able to sustain the mandarin, also as well I have seed a 14g with copepods as a breeding ground, in case the mandaring run out of food, and even tho I'm not so sure this method will work

[sanchez]

My fat face mandarin after gorging on mysis I think he eats more than my greedy cleaner shrimp!

 

[coralfun21]

3 gallons is waaaay too small for 99.99999% of any reef fish, let alone a mandarin. Set up the 30 gallon first, then we'll talk .

 

Ok...I will hold off until I get the 30 gallon established with a food source. Thanks for your response.

[Swinglinwe4189]

I'm new to reef keeping and had always felt that mandarins were a beautiful but unrealistic fish to keep (unless I had a 75+ gal tank). Now my LFS is selling tank raised mandarins... I have a 10 gallon. I wouldn't even consider it except they keep the mandarins separately in 15 gallon tanks. Their argument is without the issue of feeding, dragonettes are not overly active fish, and do not require a large tank. Am I crazy or should I go for it? (Btw this would be more of a future goal.. my tank has been runnning for a couple months).

[Socratic Monologue]

I have a 10 gallon. I wouldn't even consider it except they keep the mandarins separately in 15 gallon tanks.

 

The pet store keeps puppies in little cages, too. Long term care is not what is given at retailers.

 

Google "ORA mandarin won't eat" before you commit to owning even a tank raised one. HTH.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Socratic Monologue

[Swinglinwe4189]

The LFS I'm referring to is not your typical pet shop. They specialize in fish and will actually decline to sell you their livestock if it sounds like you don't have an adequate set-up. I did what you said and in all of the situations that I read everyone that owned a tank bred mandarin ordered them directly from ORA.. would it be unreasonable to assume that a fish I have physically seen eating prepared food would be able to be re-trained after a 5 min drive from the fish store to my tank?

[seeyouontheotherside]

I have a pink spotted mandarin in a 30 litre tank (I think thats a 7.5G in american?!)

 

My little boy is wonderfully fat and is doing well. I have had him since May (so 5months now). I had mine knowing that it had only been fed of frozen cylcopennze. He eats: Frozen Cylcopennze, Frozen Mysis, Frozen Brine, Frozen Lobster eggs- WITHOUT ANY TRAINING!!!

 

I hate people that claim it cant be done, as it evidently can be. From my own personal experience, I think there should be certain things that should be taken into consideration before getting a mandarin in ANY size tank, not just in Pico/Nano tanks. (1) They do either need a large natural pod colony or feeding regularly. This is very much aided by an Ultra low nutrient system! I run 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates. I can feed 4 cubes of frozen for my little boy a DAY and have a nitrates only reach 0.2-0.5! This was a blessing when I was away from the tank for a month and my sister was in charge and didn't feed as much as I told her to. I came back to a very thin mandarin, and trust me, within a fortnight of decent feeding he was turned back around. (2) They are a bit like seahorses on the feeding front... they NEED feeding regulary, ideally once or twice a day. I feed mine every other day in honesty, but then I also feed Live food once a week! Freshly hatched brine shrimp also help with the diet! (3) A variety of foods is a must. A variety of food will provide all vitamins etc. (4) HIGH PROTEIN foods are better than anything else. Lobster eggs by Ocean Nutrition are a god send... This is my staple food for mine, it has a protein of (i think) of about 30% instead of 4% in mysis.

 

I look around LFS's and see mandarins starving to death in shops as they are kept with more aggressive/ competitive fish. It makes me so angry! If I can do it in a 30 litre, Shops IMHO have NO EXCUSE! My Boyfriend has a MATED pair in his 4'x2'x2' SPS tank and his will take pieces of Prawn!

 

My Mandarin (his name is Toby btw) is my baby. He means so so much to me I love him to bits. If you do not love and admire this fish, you will not succeed. I believe that you can keep a mandarin in a small tank, but you do need that devotion to succeed.

 

Do your research, know what you are doing, and it can be easy. I DO NOT STRUGGLE with my baby.

 

People need to push the boundaries in this hobby for it to progress.... We didn't get to the moon just on dreams. We needed people to act upon them!

 

Liz

 

[Drewbash]

I'm thinking of getting a mandarin my tank is 40gal and stable loads of live rock. I have found an online coral store that sell ceopod subscriptions from 1 month to 1 year would that be a good idea to have with a mandarin ?

[Shyla8]

I think feeding copepods from a bottle constantly will run you lots of money, they need to eat a lot. If you get a mandarin your best bet is to try training them onto frozen or what not. I had a mandarin eating from a jar and was really fat, she had even started eating pellets. We lost her in our move and I have recently acquired 2 more after a lot of time had gone by for the tank to be established again (55g). The 2 new mandarins are already taking to the jar feeding method after about 2 weeks and are gaining weight. I feed them currently decapped brine eggs and sushi roe. Soon I am going to add frozen spirulina brine and see if I can add some pellets to their mix.

Hope this helps.

[Drewbash]

Thanks how did you start to train them to eat that way ?

[Dani3d]

So far I am at my second male, as the first one was killed by a stupid aggressive yellow tang and I had that mandarin for a year and half and he was eating all sort of things, live white worms, hikari frozen bloodworm, caplan eggs, artemias enriched with spirulina and of course pods.

 

I still have the female (2 years now) and she's huge with eggs so I recently bought another male and after a few month he's doing very well. He eats artemias enriched with spirulina, live white worms enriched with Selcon, and I have lots of pods. I have a 75 gallons but to start them eating I always quarantine them in my 20 gallons nano with liverock. The tric is to put some food on the liverock and eventually he'll pick at it. There is no garantee he'll like it but eventually he or she probably will. I have never seen a fish yet who does not like live white worms. That's mostly what my copperband has been eating for a year now.

 

At first when I put live white worms he was ignoring them totally..now he comes to my pipette to eat them from there! He still eats artemias when I put them.

 

You should try caplan eggs (masago) the little orange fish eggs that are found on sushi, and frozen blood worms. If you can find a live culture of white worms it is excellent side food to help them get strong and healthy.

 

Buying pods is not the solution as most pods that are available on the market are not the type that can live in our aquariums. Tiger pods are mostly free swimming and get eaten, or cought in the skimmer or by coral and disapear in no time. I don't think they can live very long in tropical water as I think they are cold water. waste of money.

 

It is best to find back up food and have phyto to feed the pods in the tank and some cheato for them to hide and multiply.

 

So far out of 3 green mandarin, I have had sucess with all 3, at least all 3 are eating well.

 

Thanks how did you start to train them to eat that way ?

[SouthFlorida_Tron]

Option 2, ORA's tank bred mandarins pellet & frozen trained, mine arrives tomorrow!

[Drewbash]

thanks i will have to go on a hunt for the best little mandarin in the lfs

[SouthFlorida_Tron]

a good way to find one is ask the LFS to feed different foods and see if they go for it!

[Socratic Monologue]

This month's Coral magazine is featuring dragonets. There are about four or five articles about them; one is a care article by Matt Pedersen which is really a groundbreaking article.

[cmoore73]

Thank you for this information. My wife had a larger tank ~35 gallons and had a Mandarin in there.... Unfortunately she was unable to keep up with supplying the little guy with enough food to keep him around for very long. We were considering one for the nano... now that we know about their voracious apetite, but will definitely think twice...

[darkwhitemagic]

I have a refugium and im wondering if it would be a problem if the copepods went in. i imagine they would either bypass my protein skimmer and be fine, though i would not like that, or they would be "eaten" by my skimmer. Im going to block my intake with fine mesh because i want to get an anemone but i dont think it will be fine enough to block them with out slowing the intake. what do you guys think? i really want one of these fish!