Alexraptor's "25g" Mandarin Garden - Relaunch Pg. 2

[Alexraptor]

Not all updates are good though...

 

Looks like the future of this success story is very uncertain. 2 years I've had her and she's thrived, but I fear she has gone and become egg bound.

I guess time will tell but it's not looking good.

[Newstead]

Hate to hear this. Hoping for the best.

[Alexraptor]

After more than 2 wonderful years together the end has come.

 

I went to try and feed her this morning and she was gone... it looked like she was just laying in the sand sleeping peacefully.

The last few days have been quite heartbreaking as she has wasted away, unable to eat. But how she loved her lobster eggs, until the very end. Already more than a week ago she had stopped foraging, but threw herself over the lobster eggs whenever offered, although towards the end she couldn't keep them down and kept spitting them back out. But she loved them just the same, her most favorite food in the world.

 

I did everything right. I dared to challenge decades of dogma and prevailed where conventional wisdom said I would fail. I not only kept her alive but had her thriving. Already in the first year she spent in a 10 gallon setup she thrived with an abundance of food and received enough nourishment to even bear eggs.

She died not from starvation or nutritional deficiencies, but from the complications of being egg-bound, an affliction that sadly can affect any species of fish, marine or freshwater. So looking back at the past couple of years I cannot say otherwise than that my first experience with Mandarin Dragonets has been nothing other than a complete success.

 

So as the final chapter is written in this story, and the book is about to close, let us remember "Lassie" one last time with this never before shared photo.

​​

[RIP Sebastian]

After more than 2 wonderful years together the end has come.

 

I went to try and feed her this morning and she was gone... it looked like she was just laying in the sand sleeping peacefully.

The last few days have been quite heartbreaking as she has wasted away, unable to eat. But how she loved her lobster eggs, until the very end. Already more than a week ago she had stopped foraging, but threw herself over the lobster eggs whenever offered, although towards the end she couldn't keep them down and kept spitting them back out. But she loved them just the same, her most favorite food in the world.

 

I did everything right. I dared to challenge decades of dogma and prevailed where conventional wisdom said I would fail. I not only kept her alive but had her thriving. Already in the first year she spent in a 10 gallon setup she thrived with an abundance of food and received enough nourishment to even bear eggs.

She died not from starvation or nutritional deficiencies, but from the complications of being egg-bound, an affliction that sadly can affect any species of fish, marine or freshwater. So looking back at the past couple of years I cannot say otherwise than that my first experience with Mandarin Dragonets has been nothing other than a complete success.

 

So as the final chapter is written in this story, and the book is about to close, let us remember "Lassie" one last time with this never before shared photo.

​​

 

I am so sorry for your loss. She was a pretty fishy.

 

Nick

[Newstead]

Oh, I am so sorry about Lassie.

[hinnenkm]

I'm sorry you lost her. It's always hard to lose a fish. Moving forward though, and I think I mentioned this before possibly? The mandarins and dragonets need a taller tank for spawning or they aren't able to release their eggs. The lagoon is a great tank, but I would look forward to maybe doing a mix of varieties, but not necessarily pairs of them in a tank that shallow. Good luck with what your next steps may be!

[Alexraptor]

I'm not sure of that to be honest. I did come accross a few instances of mandarins breeding in similar sized tanks, and at least one youtube video actually showing them dancing and releasing eggs in a 25, and they didn't seem to rise very high at all.

I do think though that the current in open water was a bit too strong as it discourages mandarins from leaving the reef and substrate.

 

Right now I've pretty much rebuilt the entire tank, going a little less green but still keeping in the spirit of things and stocking with hardy SPS and attempting a zoa garden, and built a bit of a rock wall with 16 kilograms of new rock.

 

I'm also reviewing what I have learned and observed over the years and am revising my theories on Mandarin Keeping. And what I have observed is that my choice of substrate seems to play a very critical role in my success, which is extremely fine 0.5-1mm grain live sand.

In one of my previous posts I showed I had stripped the tank of the majority of the vegetation. Despite this, and this was before she became egg-bound and stopped feeding, examination of the sandbed showed it was still teeming with amphipods, copepods and ostracods, not to mention worms.

 

In the meantime, here's a little video of the first time I successfully fed her. She had refused mysid and brine shrimp, but those Lobster Eggs she just went for without a moments hesitation.

​

[niQo]

That sucks! Beautiful fish!

[Tamberav]

Sorry for your loss, I lost one of mine I had for 4 years to a parasite and was completely crushed. So now I QT coral too even if the chance is small.

[Alexraptor]

So... I'm heading for a relaunch.

A couple of weeks ago I swapped out all the rock for 16 kilograms of new rock. At first I had thought of creating a zoa garden with a couple of LPS, but last weekend I was able to get some actual Caulerpa Prolifera from a public aquarium, which is so much more awesome than the C. Brachypus I had.

So this is where we are at. I've got a Frogspawn that was outgrowing my main reef and I got a red and green pavona cactus. I also got 5 different zoas scattered accross the rockwork and three Dwarf Blue Legged hermits on patrol.

 

 

My Mandarin male is still in exile in the reef tank, I figured I'd move him over in a month or two to make sure the blue-legged hermits aren't carrying any Ich cysts stuck on/in their shells... or maybe I'm just being overly cautious?

I'm also thinking of trying my hand at a Red Scooter.

 

The rock may be new, but I'm glad I kept my mature sand bed and just stirred it, critter populations have bounced back rapidly and the glass is just absolutely covered in Copepods and Isopods.

 

 

On a side note, I can swear that transparent "spike" on the bottom of the last picture is a Diatom or some kind of plankton. It looks like a sliver of glass but after I took this shot.... it moved.

[Alexraptor]

Both love and hate live rock, it's like opening a lockbox in one of those crappy pay2win online games!!

A lot of things sprouting now, noticed a pineapple sponge and some acoel flatworms(ugh) and the glass is covered in small hydroids.

 

But I also spotted this little gem, my first Stomatella snail after being in the hobby for over a decade.

 

[Alexraptor]

OMG OMG OMG! I just looked in now after lights been off for a while and spotted THREE of them!

[Alexraptor]

So its been a while since I posted here, and things don't always go quite to plan and this tank is not as much a Mandarin Garden anymore as it is a green coral reef.

 

 

My Wall Hammer that I've had for half a decade outgrew my reef so I had to move it, and since the Clowns were so attached to it they went along for the ride.

My raggedy Green Pavona has grown to completely cover the rock its on and I've had to break off and move my Red Pavona as the frogspawn in the corner is spreading out and was winning the battle.

As you can also see coraline algae is filling in on the glass quite nicely and the nutrient balance is such "for the moment" that the snails actually do an adequate job keeping the glass relatively free of microalgae. I shot this picture yesterday and haven't scraped the glass for a couple of months. Not to mention that this time a year the tank even receives a fair amount of direct sunlight in the morning hours of the day.

My male Mandarin is back in there though he almost never gets fed and has become extremely reclusive with the clowns around. When I do get a look at him I do see that he does not have the "round belly" that many Mandarin keepers advocate, but he does seem to be keeping up his body weight and does not at all look underweight or emaciated.

I'll be honest, I'm not doing my best to ensure he stays alive and healthy, as I don't like him very much. He's got a terrible temperament and not only snapped one day and nearly killed my female mandarin, but he also killed two cleaner shrimps. That kind of put him on my shit list and he's now officially a guinea pig to see if a 25g Coral/Algae hybrid reef can sustain one on its own without supportive feeding.

 

So that's kind of where things stand right now. Got some plans on shuffling around some of the smaller colonies and placing some SPS frags need the top of the ridge and see how they end up doing.

[Alexraptor]

So a Nano Mandarin pod swarming reef-tank is totally a thing.

I got LPS and SPS growing like crazy while still maintaining a healthy pod population. The blades of caulerpa and the glass are just swarming with copepods without me having had to go super hardcore on the feeding and dirty water.

And their totally sexing it up too!

 

But I hope my Mandarin is getting enough to eat because I lost a clownfish to intestinal worms and treated both of them, I just hope he has not picked them up from the clowns too as I can't see there's any way I can catch and remove him for a de-worming treatment.

But whatever happens to him, I can with absolute certainty say that his dietary needs are being fully met(accounting for a healthy animal and not the possibility of intestinal worms), so at least that's something.

[Weetabix7]

29 minutes ago, Alexraptor said:

So a Nano Mandarin pod swarming reef-tank is totally a thing.

I got LPS and SPS growing like crazy while still maintaining a healthy pod population. The blades of caulerpa and the glass are just swarming with copepods without me having had to go super hardcore on the feeding and dirty water.

And their totally sexing it up too!

 

But I hope my Mandarin is getting enough to eat because I lost a clownfish to intestinal worms and treated both of them, I just hope he has not picked them up from the clowns too as I can't see there's any way I can catch and remove him for a de-worming treatment.

But whatever happens to him, I can with absolute certainty say that his dietary needs are being fully met(accounting for a healthy animal and not the possibility of intestinal worms), so at least that's something.

 

Wow, that's pretty cool!!

To what do you attribute your success with such a good pod/microfauna population?

Asking, because this is something I am seeking with my tank.

[Alexraptor]

I'd like to think its a combo of quality live rock with a lot of internal structure, extremely fine sand, a plentitude of macro-algae and the occasional heavy feeding. 

I have noted that periods when I haven't been feeding much the pod and critter populations tend to be much lower, so it's definitely in large part a balancing act with nutrients.

[Weetabix7]

31 minutes ago, Alexraptor said:

I'd like to think its a combo of quality live rock with a lot of internal structure, extremely fine sand, a plentitude of macro-algae and the occasional heavy feeding. 

I have noted that periods when I haven't been feeding much the pod and critter populations tend to be much lower, so it's definitely in large part a balancing act with nutrients.

 

Ok, I'm experimenting with that myself right now, thanks. 

[Alexraptor]

So made a little video on my Euphyllias, and an unplanned guest performance by my motorboating clown!

 

[Alexraptor]

So restarted about a year ago now, and still discovering cool little hitchhikers. This is why i love this hobby!

 

[Nart]

Job well done!

 

I am considering a Mandarin for my 25G... but right now I have two clowns and a starry blenny in it. I want to re-home my clowns and blenny just to keep a mandarin in it.

Did you run into excess nutrients issue? and what's your water change schedule like?

 

I love my corals as well and asides from gravel vacs/water changes to export nutrients, I grow chaeto in the back to help keep my nutrients level low. With my current stocking + corals, by the end of the week my Nitrates are 2PPM and Phos 0.02PPM. My only concerns are running into algae issues with the bio-load of a Mandarin.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Also - the LFS I go to QT's all their fishes before they sell it. During that time, they will pretty much train all the fishes in QT to accept frozen food. The spotted Mandarin and regular Mandarin that I saw in their QT both accepted frozen food. Would you have any insights as to how many times per day would I have to feed frozen food to keep them nice and fat?

[Alexraptor]

Schedule? lol I don't have one.

I perform large scale water changes when I feel the system "needs" it, which would amount to bi-monthly i guess, sometimes a bit more often.

I use Caulerpa Prolifera in the display to soak up nutrients, and I've found it to do a much better job of it than Chaeto. Chaeto seems to rely a lot more of Nitrates which can become a limiting nutrient, while the caulerpa is quite happy soaking up phosphates in a Nitrate limited environment.

 

For feeding it kind of depends a lot on the available live food in the rocks, I have an abundance of that.

When I got my first Mandarin in my 10 gallon tank I fed her frozen lobster eggs twice a day, and over time stepped that down to once a day until I got to the point where I only supplemented with food once or twice a week.

[Alexraptor]

Did a little pump switcheroo today.

 

[Alexraptor]

Managed to coax some life back into my Rainbow Monti frag!

It suffered badly for a while when it was in a tank where I managed to zero the nutrients through lack of feeding(and no fish) and almost bleached entirely, but now its got its colors back again after I removed the splashguard on my crappy lamp.

 

[Alexraptor]

Hostilities have broken out!

 

 

[Tamberav]

Lovely tank with lots of natural fauna, I have been itching to set up my mandy tank again.