Mandarin is always pecking at stuff

[Lutra]

I just imagined a mandarin munching on teeny little cupcakes...

 

Oh, and for future reference, even the Petsmarts and Petcos in Raleigh generally sell frozen foods and some live foods, so if the lfs is out you can hit them up.

Edited February 22, 2009 by Lutra

[MaxTO]

Hello all , my first post

 

i have a 125 Gal tank with close to 100 lbs of live rock . My tank is just over 3 years old.

I had a Mandarin Goby for roughly a year and a half before he died roughly 3 months ago. I have recently bought a new Mandarin Goby to replace the one I had . I hope he does just as well of not better then the last one I had. 

I personaly never did anything  special to populate his food source so I am hoping to have  continued  success with this beautiful fish. 

 

So far I see him scoping my rocks and  pecking away . I hope this is a good sign that he is eating . 

[theeasterbunny]

On 7/3/2017 at 9:03 PM, MaxTO said:

Hello all , my first post

 

i have a 125 Gal tank with close to 100 lbs of live rock . My tank is just over 3 years old.

I had a Mandarin Goby for roughly a year and a half before he died roughly 3 months ago. I have recently bought a new Mandarin Goby to replace the one I had . I hope he does just as well of not better then the last one I had. 

I personaly never did anything  special to populate his food source so I am hoping to have  continued  success with this beautiful fish. 

 

So far I see him scoping my rocks and  pecking away . I hope this is a good sign that he is eating . 

Hey! Welcome - seems you revived an old thread. Your mandarin is beautiful but maybe a little on the svelte side. I would try to get him on frozen as a supplement for weight gain, they generally love Nutramar Ova. 

[Han Solo]

Do some searches on how to cultivate copepods and/or adult brine shrimp. It's really easy and can be done in a bucket with no filtration. You should also have a large refugium with macroalgae. Do you have any dense macroalgae in your display? Also a good idea. These harbor copepods and other small animals that keep mandarins thriving. 

 

Also definitely buy some live phytoplankton to keep in your refrigerator. You propagate this. Add a few milliliters to a small tank per day and it will help feed these small animals. 

[Tamberav]

Mandarins will peck even if there is nothing to peck at. If you take a healthy mandarin and put it in a sterile tank free of pods, they still peck.

 

Your tank is large and seasoned so there should be pods, but mandarins can die even in large tanks. The fact that I see algae on the overflow is a good sign though. I am not sure I would count a year a half as success, mandarins have a much longer life span. Do you know why he died?