reefer413 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 he's still selling them for $75 which i think is fair considering shipping and loss. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 Hey! A fellow Minnesotan! I picked up the pair from SW empire. The guy who posted it made a mistake. Link to comment
soundwave Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Can I ask you what you paid for your gold assessor? I got one locally for $35 but I see that drs. is selling them for $110. What gives? Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 No problem - I paid $79.99 off live aquaria Diver den PLUS shipping so all in all in came to like $110. Sounds like you got a great deal. I love this fish. It went into hiding for the first few days and now it swims all over the tank. I turned down the flow from my MP10 (the little gobies would be stuck against the wall) and he is loving it. http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/itemd...R-_-DDN-_-PRDCT Link to comment
lhernandez86 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Wow 100$ a pop....these are super nice I have a wild caught green mandarin. I know for a fact that LFS get the wild caught ones for only 3-6$ each (both Spotted Mandarins and Green Mandarins)....so who really knows if they are from ORA or Wild Caught? Unless they are able to take frozen or pellets before you buy them it sounds like the LFS could be making a high profit on these guys selling them as ORA Mandarins....IMO. I would love to buy a ORA Spotted Mandarin also but no one in my area has them lol think ill stick with the wild atleast there cheaper... Link to comment
FishFreak77 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Those are some nice looking fish. I hope everything works out and they start eating for you. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 That would be a dirty thing for the LFS to do and I don't see it happening. The guys at SWempire are pretty nice and there excitement about having these in for the first time seemed genuine. Maybe its ORA? So I bought two because I was feeling lucky and figured I had a 1/3 chance of it being a male/female combo and at the time I was liking those odds. Now that the excitement is somewhat out of my system, if it happens to be a female/female combo would the end result be bad? Link to comment
lhernandez86 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 I think they will be fine....I think its only the males that fight....you can tell but the fins on the back of there neck (long=male) (short=female) Ive seen LFS do much worse and wouldnt be surprised if they did try to pull the wild caught ones as ORA ones....not saying the ones you bought are wild. Maybe I've had too many bad experiences with LFS...I buy most of my livestock online or from one lfs that I trust but mostly online. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 Great! im liking the 2/3 odds better than 1/3 I'm giving my LFS the benefit of the doubt unless I can prove otherwise. Link to comment
flinster Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Great! im liking the 2/3 odds better than 1/3 I'm giving my LFS the benefit of the doubt unless I can prove otherwise. Don't worry about what people are saying, They are from ORA. ORA released them on Tuesday. The lfs owner is a friend of mine and I saw the shipment come in. I paid $50. Anyone that knows ORA knows that they would not purchase wild caught and sell them as captive bred. I do hope they start eating pretty soon, though. I have an email in to ORA to see how well they were eating for them.... Link to comment
Rem Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Did ORA provide instructions on how often your supposed to feed them? Would frozen food once daily be enough or do they need multiple feedings throughout the day? Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 I'm feeding my basslet 2x daily so thats what i'm going to do initially. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 Don't worry about what people are saying, They are from ORA. ORA released them on Tuesday. The lfs owner is a friend of mine and I saw the shipment come in. I paid $50. Anyone that knows ORA knows that they would not purchase wild caught and sell them as captive bred. I do hope they start eating pretty soon, though. I have an email in to ORA to see how well they were eating for them.... Yeah I didn't for a moment believe that SWE would pull something like that. they are really nice and I think there operation is 100% legit. They have even steered me away from making expensive "non-critical" purchases before. I was joking on the ORA thing too but I appreciate the email! Not eating for the first couple of days is par for the course anyways. This is just getting more attention for obvious reasons. Link to comment
MNReefCouple Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 I work at SWempire and yes there ORA, Those mandarins came in that morning I picked up the box myself and did the acclimation. Link to comment
Dani3d Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Do you see them pick at the live rock? if so I would be skeptical about them being from ora and they might just be wild ones. I surely hope not but if you see them eat on the liverock, and refuse frozen or pellet food, that's not a good sign. I hope this is not the case here. I read that ORA fish are trained to eat pellet food and they are not sold until they are fully set on a dry food diet. They should recognize this as food and accept it in a few days at least. You will know fast enough, as if they start foraging on live rock and they ignore any other type of food, then it cannot be ORA fish. As for your odds of getting a male and a female, good luck but if you see that you have 2 males you might have to sell one, wich would be easy if they are trained on frozen food. Both my green mandarins are wild, but I did not find that hard to train them at all. Maybe I was lucky. Link to comment
rrcg50 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 One of our local fish stores is oras largest customer and they said that ora was not releasing them to this week. Link to comment
MNReefCouple Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Boss explained it like this: “stores in larger markets may be able to keep up with the demand with every order then cost plus shipping plus normal markup would put the fish around $75 each, but in smaller markets where you have nothing else to order but the mandarins, shipping + fish * mark up = 100+”. I am proud to work at our store, I am proud of the honest relationships I am able to build with our fellow reefers. Best of all I love working for a LFS that carries alot of the same ideas and passions that I as a hobbiest held. To see that reflected in a lfs was a breathe of fresh air and being able to be a part of that after being a loyal customer for years is sweet. Link to comment
19jeffro83 Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 There is a strong posability that some lfs will bs on this one. It's tough time and everyone wants to make a buck. Honesty is a rarity. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 9, 2010 Author Share Posted July 9, 2010 I tried feeding again.... No go I could only find one of the goby's so I focused on the one. First I tried the fomula one pellets. He didn't take it. Then I tried target feeding mysis again via turkey baster. That didn't work either. Not a nibble. target feeding seems to create a relatively strong water burst for such a tiny fish so I thought that might be spooking them. So I waited a bit and dropped a pile of mysis into his location. It was a beatiful drop, but he started swimming away from it as it nearly landed on him. It landed in a neat little pile and eventually he made his way to rest on top of it. His face was in a pile of mysis and he didn't eat any. Instead he just layed on top of it. Once my emerald crab caught wind of it, he scared him away and finished off the pile. I have no doubt these are ORA. Its the second day they haven't eaten so im hopeful for tomorrow morning. Kind of feel like Beatrix Kiddo on Kill Bill when she is trying to wiggle her little toe for the first time.... I may start doing small dailly water changes. I am about to test my water parameters but there is too much uneaten food. The CUC is feasting, but they don't get it all. Link to comment
Nemo Niblets Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 One of our local fish stores is oras largest customer and they said that ora was not releasing them to this week. http://reefbuilders.com/2010/07/05/captive...otted-mandarin/ Don't expect it to take food right away... it's going to be stressed. And if they DONT pick food off the rock I'd be worried. THey are trained onto frozen, but I highly highly doubt you can break the habit of foraging from rocks... I wouldn't buy one if they didn't pick pods off of a rock. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 9, 2010 Author Share Posted July 9, 2010 Boss explained it like this: “stores in larger markets may be able to keep up with the demand with every order then cost plus shipping plus normal markup would put the fish around $75 each, but in smaller markets where you have nothing else to order but the mandarins, shipping + fish * mark up = 100+”. I am proud to work at our store, I am proud of the honest relationships I am able to build with our fellow reefers. Best of all I love working for a LFS that carries alot of the same ideas and passions that I as a hobbiest held. To see that reflected in a lfs was a breathe of fresh air and being able to be a part of that after being a loyal customer for years is sweet. I'm in your camp MNReefCouple. I trust you guys, think you are awesome, and would not recomend anyone to another store in MN. When I bought the fish, I didn't care about the price at all, I didn't feel that the price was out of line. I hope I didn't come off this way. There has been a lot of buzz so I wanted to let everyone know a market price range. In the beginning of the thread I try to communicate this point, and say that given our location and many other factors, that MN prices should natually be at the upper end of the range, so if you are paying more than $100, you might think twice. I would gladly pay an extra 20% per fish to support your business. In the long run, it will probably save me money because I will get good products and advice that will save my time/cash. They will eat soon enough. I have faith. Link to comment
19jeffro83 Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 I know I got lucky. But all honesty my wild caught spoted took to frozen the day I got her. An ORA should eat by at least the third day I would think. Also I'd be wary of buying any fish with a mouth as small as your babies. U less I was properly set up with live cultures. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 9, 2010 Author Share Posted July 9, 2010 Looks like user error. I probably picked the wrong food type. Thanks for the link "Some of the frozen foods that they readily accept include: finely chopped Hikari Blood Worms, Nutramar Ova (prawn eggs), fish roe, and baby brine shrimp. They are also accustomed to eating New Life SPECTRUM Small Fish Formula pellets." Link to comment
19jeffro83 Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 In my 14 I did water changes 3-5 times a week to keep up with the excess food from spot feeding. Link to comment
wamb0010 Posted July 9, 2010 Author Share Posted July 9, 2010 live cultures. I don't even know what that is Link to comment
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