Mandarin Rescue; Failure

[MainelyReefer]

New Attempt with a Biota Mandarin!  I started a new thread as this one makes me depressed 

link to new thread 

 

 

December 24th marks the 2 year point of my first mandarin being in my tank.  It took well over a year of watching him suffer and shrink until I successfully trained him to frozen by luck not purpose.  Now he eats a slew of frozen and any .5mm pellet.   Having gotten him fat and healthy I feel confident in my ability to supply his needs, and have been really wanting to get him a female as mating is the purpose of life and maybe he wants that.  Yesterday at my LFS I spotted a tiny female green mandarin dragonet, she is skin and bones.... but her fins are all intact, she was actively hunting the sand and minimal rockwork, and her color was good although dull in spots.  So today I put a chunk of nutramar ova into a baby food jar and brought a pippette down to the store and got permission to try feeding her.  She immediately took to the frozen so I bought her right up(no discount no guarantee, typical LFS) for $25.99.  I couldn't get them to put her on hold so I could set up a proper QT but I figured my reef bowl has loads of pods and is tiny enough to really fatten her up with easy spot feeding over the next week and I could to 1/2 bowl WC's after easily.  Not planning to QT her for a longtime as mandarins are pretty resilient when it comes to diseases and such.

In store

she screams FEED ME! That's nutramar floating around because they couldn't stop the flow

In the bowl 

She is already hunting the pods in the bowl, really hoping I can confirm her health and then worry about pairing her with my male successfully, any ideas on pairing? My plan in this thread is to follow her successes and failures as she works her way into my DT with her future mate and hopefully she will be well trained and super fat on pellets and frozen!

[AlmightyJoshaeus]

Beautiful fish even if she needs some TLC...I hope the best

[Clown79]

Congrats on the success with your mandarin.

 

You are very dedicated and that work has had  a positive outcome?

 

I'm sure you will be successful in getting the new girl all happy and chubby.

[MainelyReefer]

Super sad news FAILURE, she made it 13 days and into my DT but she passed away on Christmas Eve.  It's embarrassing really because I was so confident I could save her after having so much success with Poe(my 2 year old male).  Perhaps I will try again in the future to get Poe a mate but in the meantime I feel like shit.  I have learned a few things from the loss.

1. Poe accepts female mandarins and actually seemed to love having a mate(albeit extremely short term he hovered around the same area and showed zero aggression)

2. Even a fish who picks at frozen in the store may not readily accept frozen in tank(or enough to survive) I think maybe due to moving stress she wasn't as comfortable in her environment?

3. Don't buy an emaciated fish, a fatter specimen will be able to make it past the "break in" point, thinking back Poe was extremely healthy when I bought him and I watched his health dip and then rebound over many months, if buying a mandarin only buy fat healthy specimens unless your a risk taker with an extra 25$

 

Looking back I should have made daily trips to the LFS and fed her where she was accepting food and comfortable, then once fattened up try the move.  Watching her for 2 weeks and then in her final days she was so lethargic and wouldn't respond to any food, it's depressing.  Glad Poe was my first as he has showed me it's worth all this trouble, and for that I will try to hunt him down a female ORA mandarin from a more reputable LFS.  Sorry for the failure but I thought it was better to share my experience than hide under a rock in embarrassment. 

[OPtasia]

From what i've heard, ORA stopped their dragonette breeding program because it wasn't cost effective. AlgaeBarn carries the Biota dragonettes on occasion that are already eating frozen foods. Like you, I got lucky with my first dragonette and kept it alive for years on prepared foods. Every subsequent attempt for me has failed and I don't try to keep them any more.

[Mazzy21]

At least you tried to help her. She would have surely starved to death in the LFS. Dragonettes are one fish I really wish the hobby would give up on unless someone can make a firmly established tank-bred line. Continuously capturing wild fish that everyone in the supply chain knows are 99% likely to die of starvation is just cruel and inhumane.

[Clown79]

I'm so sorry!

 

You tried your best, you clearly are dedicated and successfully saved Poe. 

 

I don't think it's mates death is on your hands. She may have been too far gone by the time you came along to save her! 

 

Don't give up. Get Poe another mate but maybe a chubby one?

[jesseatam]

Sorry for your loss, I know how terrible it feels to slowly watch a fish waste away. You can also buy the biota mandarins off their own ocean oddities store on the biota aquariums site or through Live Aquaria now. AlageBarn is probably a good place to order from though because as far as I know they give you free pods with your mandarin.

[MainelyReefer]

AlgaeBarn definitely seems to be where it's at.  I have gotten copepods from there since I started with Poe, and they have small sized mandarins .(75"-1") and option of female/male so I can get it easily.  Just wondering if they are in good shape. I signed up for the in stock email list, it's pricey so I'm assuming they must be healthy. I wish it was WYSIWYG.