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mandarin goby


gfox

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Hello,

 

I would like to know what I need to do to keep a mandarine goby.

 

My tank:

45g sube display

25g sump (bare)

 

plenty of live rock, and flourishing corals.

+cleaning crew

 

only other fish are 2 clowns

 

what do they eat?

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Pretty much... They really can eat all the pods in a system. With dedication, including many purchases of LIVE amphipod, copepod, and/or mysid shrimp cultures, they can be kept....But they really do take dedication, and lots of experience...Not to mention a well-established tank. I'd strongly recommend NOT buying one (yet)...

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Ray whisperer stop being so dramatic. Gfox id strongly advise against it for a good year, go with Caesars Informaion, they take alot of dedication. I purchased one for my 15 gallon nano, he had to be moved to my 45 gallon where hes doing really well actually. Had him for a good few months now and hes a nice size. You can sometimes tell if theyre not doing too well. They will look skinny, and not plump, They will not be as active. In a way they remind me of six line wrasses, constanly on the move, exploring, and feeding.

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YEA its doable iv had my spotted mandarin in my 20g tank for somewhere around a year he has not starved to death and is looking very happy. maybe i got lucky but i dont add amphipods or copepods to the system nor do i feed it frozen food and he is doing quite well.

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cyrusthevyrus

i dont see why people get so bent out of shape when the word mandarin comes about. Just make sure you get a healthy lookin fish. You can tell when they are really beat up or just stressed out because their sykodelic colors look faded. I got one from the LFS that was good lookin and had a nip taken out of his tail, but here he is 2 weeks later with fins fully grown, gained a bit of weight and it eats whatever i feed it. IF THE FISH ARE HUNGRY THEY WILL EAT. Just like the stupid cat....it can sit in the tree all day until it gets hungry, then the furball comes runnin back into the house to eat whatever is in its bowl. My green madarin eats brine and mysis....and I guess its rare to eat pellets? Well mine eats mad amounts of the formula one pellets.

 

Oh btw its in a NC24DX.

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yah i've seen one that ate flake food at a LFS, went in the next day to buy it and it was already gone, but i have seen quite a few that eat frozen brine shrimp

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i had a mandarin in a 75 it did eat all my pods, a lot faster than i thought! however, it then started to accept live brine and eventually frozen mysis. It lived off pods alone for about 5 months. Its a good fish if you have a big enough tank and get a healthy one.

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Many people let their mandarins DIE. That's why we get so bent out of shape about it. Just give it dedication, and don't feed it brine shrimp--which is like celery, no nutritional value at all--and it may well survive.

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cyrusthevyrus

Dude ok....im tired of hearing everyone say that a Mandarin will die cause all it eats is pods and whatever the heck.

 

Look....I got me a goby now....going on 1 month.

 

It gets hungry, it will eat. Mine eats whatever it wants when it wants. Most of the day it cruises the tank nipping at whatever. At feeding time it eats what I drop in my tank. It likes brine shrimp...it will eat mysis...it also eats OCEAN NUTRITION FORMULA 1 PELLETS ( THATS RIGHT HATERS, I FEED IT PELLETS AND IT EATS LIKE 10 IN A SITTING.) So like I was saying.....just be sure to get a healthy one when you pick it up at the LFS. Get one that has vibrant colors and make sure its brown is BROWN and not faded. That is the big indicator that its a healthy fish.

 

Also......they sleep. When they sleep they look dead/sick cause their metabolism slows down and their colors fade.

 

TEMPERATURE WISE....mine lived through 88 degrees and down to 66 degrees (dont ask....i tempered my fish accidentally).

 

Healthy, growing, and will eat out of my hand. Reminds me of a cat.

 

Oh and just as a kicker. my room mate put a wheat thin in the tank and it starting munching on it. Oh btw its a nano cube 24DX with 2 clowns, a tang, 6line, scooper gobi, and 2 shrimp.

 

w00t.

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That's great...It's YOUR fish. But, hey, obviously your ONE mandarin that you'd have is the same as every other one that exists in the world. Probably why there's such a high success rate with them.

 

Oh, WAIT. NO, there isn't. Can it.

 

Besides, ONE MONTH? Wow. It could take several months just to starve to death or die of malnutrition. Your tank is still very young, I take it? It won't last long stocked like that, and with a keeper that has an attitude like yours. Again..Can it.

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Wow, I thought this thread was dead! OK some have had success with mandarins that is a given. Sorry about my initial post, I just don't like to hear a couple of months down the road that it died. So gfox if you want to give it a try.

Cyrus 1 month is not too long at all. Now before you label me a hater just hear me out. Mandarin eat pods. Their bodies are designed to live off the nutrition derived from pods. Feeding your fish other foods is not giving it the proper nutrients, or too much( I wouldn't know as I have'nt looked into this subject) Brine shrimp more than a few days old are for the most part nutritionally devoid. Many flke or pellet formulas are the same as FW food formulas just packaged differently and sold as marine for a higher price.( I don't think this is the case with Ocean Nutrition) In short wait untill you've had this fish a good long while before you tout you'r success. I hope it does live and thrive for you, but unfortunatly I gotta side with Caesar on this.

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I tottally disagree about not getting a mandarin... I have an LFS her in Memphis that actually has successfully gotten mandarins to eat dead food like brian shrimp and mysis.. as far as having a well establlished tank.. mine isn't what most considered well established ie having for longer than a year.. one thing I did do is buy my live rock and non coepapod eating stuff first and they began to completely take over the tank (coepapods) in 2 months. I have a 16g bowfront with a back pack refugium full of rubble rock and calerpa algae the coepapods thrive there and replenish the tank as the mandirin feeds on them... I have had this mandarin for a while now and he's doing great! beautiful color. I wouldn't consider myself as being an experienced reefer. this is my first true reef tank and now i have my nano I'm creating.

 

I say go for it... They are a great fish to have... and they aren't that hard to keep. Make sure it's a healthy looking fish before you buy thogh.

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cyrusthevyrus
I tottally disagree about not getting a mandarin... I have an LFS her in Memphis that actually has successfully gotten mandarins to eat dead food like brian shrimp and mysis.. as far as having a well establlished tank.. mine isn't what most considered well established ie having for longer than a year.. one thing I did do is buy my live rock and non coepapod eating stuff first and they began to completely take over the tank (coepapods) in 2 months. I have a 16g bowfront with a back pack refugium full of rubble rock and calerpa algae the coepapods thrive there and replenish the tank as the mandirin feeds on them... I have had this mandarin for a while now and he's doing great! beautiful color. I wouldn't consider myself as being an experienced reefer. this is my first true reef tank and now i have my nano I'm creating.

 

I say go for it... They are a great fish to have... and they aren't that hard to keep. Make sure it's a healthy looking fish before you buy thogh.

 

listen to da man, he is wise!

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Yet many experienced reefers lose their mandarins after around a year. Hmm. Coincidence, sure.

 

Again, brine shrimp are GARBAGE! They have no fatty acids, no vitamins, no minerals--they're junk! They fatten up your fish and make his belly bigger, but starve him (nutritional deficiency) in the process. Ugh. Slow, cruel way to kill your fish.

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my room mate put a wheat thin in the tank and it starting munching on it. Oh btw its a nano cube 24DX with 2 clowns, a tang, 6line, scooper gobi, and 2 shrimp

 

How much dope do you have to smoke before you get the idea to put a wheat thin into your fish tank?

 

No, I'm not being helpful, nor do I have any plans to be in the near future. I hope yer nanocube cracks :P

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masterswimmer

Caesar777, you speak volumes of credible knowledge.

 

Success in keeping a mandarin is not measured in months. cyrusthevyrus, let us all know when your mandarin reaches a nice ripe age of a couple of years.

 

Jose68, you've already given the ultimate disclaimer of this being your very first reef tank. You are quite far from being the expert to be spreading your 'experiences'.

 

Mandarins are a very delicate and difficult fish to keep, as quoted by Scott Michael. I'm going so far as to say you'd all agree he is a well respected aquarist in our hobby. They do thrive on copepods.....not even amphipods. He ranks them a 2 on the difficulty scale (1 being hardest and 5 being easiest to keep healthy). Why dispute all the proven failures? Especially when the only to proponents of keeping a mandarin have only a few MONTHS of success, between them!!

 

There are some scattered reports of success stories of getting them to accept some frozen foods. This is a great advancement. However, it is the exception, not the rule. To subject these beautiful fish to your pot luck chance of survival is irresponsible.

 

I have had my mandarin in my 75 gallon tank with 130 lbs of LR and a very pod populated fuge and NO competing pod eating fish (read 6 line wrasse) for just about 14 months now. I am still 10 months away from saying I've been successful. And mine is plumb, active and colorful.

 

Ceasar offers very sound advice. He is worth listening to.

 

Russ

 

What about 6 hour old brine?

 

 

As long as the baby brine still have their yolk sack attached they are still considered nutritional.

 

Russ

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if you buy the freeze dried brine shrimp for marine fish by Omega One they are enriched with vitamins. As long as you buy this i believe that you will be ok. if its freeze dried they usually add proper nutrients for your fish.

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Hehe.. No, the name IS a bit misleading. :D (It's my poodle's name.) I still appreciate your post--that's the biggest mistake people make: measuring their reef inhabitants' survival on a scale of a few months. Give it at LEAST a year or two for any reef critter. They live on their time scale, not ours. (It'd take you just two weeks to starve to death without food, or maybe a month with very littlee food...For fish, it can take months or up to a year, and for corals and sponges, even longer until it's noticeable.) To go further and take this tiny percentage of a "success rate" and apply it to all of a species so notrorious for dying despite the best of care is nothing short of VERY irresponsible. There are people who have the right idea in attempting these difficult creatures--non-photosynthetic sponges and corals (Dendronepthya, etc.), moorish idols, ribbon eels, nautilus--but these are few and far between, and ALL have extensive knowledge and experience. That's my piece.

 

Ick, Andre--incorrect. Brine shrimp are rarely fortified, and even when they are--do you really think that eating celery and popping vitamins is nutritionally equal to eating a balanced diet of proper foods? Of course not. Brine shrimp (Artemia sp.) are not a true marine organism, and thus do not contain the essential fatty acids that marine animals need. They also contain negligible amounts of protein, vitamins, or minerals. The lack of vitamins is only a tiny factor in why brine shrimp are such inappropriate food. Add the diseases that the live ones can carry...

 

PS, I hope my being female doesn't make you biased. ;):flower:

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masterswimmer
They also contain negligible amounts of protein, vitamins, or minerals. The lack of vitamins is only a tiny factor in why brine shrimp are such inappropriate food. Add the diseases that the live ones can carry...

 

PS, I hope my being female doesn't make you biased. ;):flower:

 

 

One or two day old BBS that still contain their yolk sacks are still nutrient laden. After that, they are worthless.

 

And yes, your being female does make me biased, :flower::bowdown:

 

Russ

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