Green Mandrin questions

[skabooya]

Hey im thinking of either keeping 1 green mandrin in my 20gal High or 2 clowns with a yellow goby.. or maybe 2 clowns and the 1 mandrin im not sure yet. (please give inputs). Anyway, what kind of care does a mandrin need? Should i only buy one that will eat frozen foods? will they harm corals at all? will they harm inverts like shrimp and snails and crabs at all?

[666]

Look out for the mandarin police. They are a sub-division of the tang police

[skabooya]

LOL:) im only asking for information before i buy.

[skabooya]

anyone

[jenniebutterfly]

it is impossible to tell if they only eat frozen unles you watch it at the lfs. 99.9% will not eat it at the lfs so you might as well start thinking about another type of fish now or else you will be having a flushing funeral.

[BKtomodachi]

Its good to ask questions.

 

Mandy's arent for beginners.

[Kogut]

If you have to ask about something, odds are you're not ready for it 99% of the time. There is a thread called "Dragonet Feeding" or something like that in the forums. Do a search for mandarins and such. I'd say stay away from one unless you have a larger tank w/ lots of LR and a fuge. I'm probably adding one to my 20L because I have lots of LR, crushed coral everywhere, and a nice CPR fuge. I see pods wherever I look in my tank 24 hours a day... I still wouldn't get one if it didn't eat frozen food, though. They're some of the most incredible fish available for an aquarium. Unfortunatly, like all great salt water animals (sharks, moorish idols, nudis), they are very picky eaters.

[patio]

they are very peacful fish and are so cool looking mine was killed by a damsel about a month ago! =( i feed mine live kril he loved that stuff!

 

i used to think of him as a humming bird! just because of the way that he flies!

[skabooya]

ok thanks everyone. this was a big help. i was only curious anyway. but now i definitely know not to get a mandrin unless i have way more experience. maybe someday though LOL.

[renichms]

I found one eating frozen foods at a store recently, so I bought him. He's still in freakout mode, not coming out yet but he has been nibbling on pods so far. I have a 20H with a 10 gallon refugium. Total, I have 40-50 pounds live rock or so, about 40 pounds live sand, 20 pounds crushed coral and bought frozen food to give to him soon. Hopefully, he'll get comfortable and eat the foods I put in along with pods. He can't completely deplete the pod population thanks to the refugium but it would probably keep him very lean if used alone. I also do not intend to keep this setup forever. When I move (within a year), my setup will grow to 100 gallons and I intend to keep about 180 pounds live rock, lots of live sand, then no need for frozen foods.

 

It's possible to find them eating frozen or other prepared foods, just not easy.

 

RN

[Yetchy]

I have had a mandarin in my nanocube 12g for about 8 months now. It seems to be doing alright so far. I hatch brine shrimp in a 2 l Bottle with an air pump. Take about 20 cc of the water and brine shrimp mix and squirt it into the tank each day. After the initial hatch of shrimp I just add 1 cc of marine snow to the bottle every 2 days and then dump the whole thing out at the end of the week. It is a kinda a pain but seems to work. The mandarin seems to like the baby brine shrimp a whole lot. This is by no means a cure all but seems to be working for mine. Just a suggestion from a nubie that bought one under the encoragement of the LFS.