Green Mandarin Dragonet, suggestions?

[Travis]

Hey guys i just acclimated this lil guy and the lights are off right now, but i am wondering if any of you guys have experience w/ them? any suggestions on supplement feeding/tank mates?

 

Thanks

[Kool-cat]

how big is your tank, how many pounds of live rock do you have, do u have a refugium? These guys will probably only eat live foods, do u have enough live food?

[Sardaukar]

They will almost never eat frozen/flake food unless painstakingly weaned onto it. Its difficult to do, requires a special setup and is not guarenteed to work. Dragonets eat pods and thats about it. You needs lots of established live rock (like 75#+) in order to keep them fed. Did you do any research before you bought it?

[Travis]

i have 20 lb of LF and 20 lb of live sand

 

no refugium

[Travis]

yes i did some research and I am sure it should live happily for about 6 months in there till my 70 Gal is ready

[xcajx]

yeah, tough little fish to keep, but man are they cool lookin'. hoo boy are the fish police gonna poop on this.

[Seanano]

if you scroll down on this forum you will find my post about mandarins... i've managed to successfully along w/ my LFS "ween" them with a great outcome. We currently have 30 mandarins in the back of the store and in the two weeks we've had em. 24 of them have already started taking the frozen food. the last trip around we went a LOT slower. The other 6 i am almost positive will come around as they do turn for the smell of the food once it hits the water. i own two in my 20Long and they dart to the top for food and get vicious for it fighting off my other two fish. They need to be fed a minimum of 2x a day once you get them onto frozen food. atleast a 5-7 count on small mandarins (of bloodworms) and 7-12 on larger specimens, per feeding. We have noticed males are less accepting of frozen food then the females, go figure. lol. however they do take to it, just like to be stubborn about it. As far as them "only eating pods" despite popular belief a good part of their diet, yes is pods, however, they get their main source of nutrition from flatworms, bristleworms, etc... as you may know worms are high in protein and b-12 which is essential to this fishes existance. more so then pods. pods just make em fatter. if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, as far as your fish "surviving" thats not acceptible, living happily wont happen, especially for this fish, 6months from now, you will have setup a 70, fresh tank. minimum 2wks to cycle and you need an established tank which will be another 6months. the fish will not make it, i will repeat this. As far as tank mates, consider it your only fish for the next 3-6months. As you don't want it trying to compete w/ tankmates for food. Stay the heck away from 6-lines or any other wrasse, or carnivorous fish, they will lose the race for food and die. Now, you do have a few choices, A.) take it back to the fish store. B.)Give it to a friend or fellow reefer with a larger tank. or C.) prepare for one hell of a trip and headache with this fish and getting him switched to frozen food. which i will give you any and all help you need... It's not easy, but read over my "Mandarin Code Cracked" thread, so you will have an idea of what you are getting into. I have taken quite a liking to these guys as you can tell... but they are HIGH Maintenance and i mean it.

[Sardaukar]

Actually thats incorrect. Mandarins will not eat bristleworms, at least not ones bigger than, say, 1/4". They will devour flatworms with gusto however. They are mainly microcrustacean eaters and pods (copepods and amphipods) make up a large portion of their natural diet. I concur with everything else seanano said. It will starve long before you move it over to the new tank and even if it somehow lived, there would be no pod population to feed it in the new tank. Option B would be the best one for the fish, although A is ok if you have to. Option C will be very difficult and not even guarenteed success.

 

Be patient - wait until you have a large enough well established tank or can acquire one that will eat frozen food in front of you. Unfortunately, it sounds like you didn't do any research before buying this fish. This is the kind of uninformed purchase that damages the hobby. Please try to find out before hand about any prospective purchases. You will not only save yourself and the organism alot of time and hassel, but you will also not be sending the wrong message to the fish stores.