info on mandarins

[heatherhoge]

I have purchased a mandarin about a week ago. She was very skinny but gaining weight slowly. She is in a 15 gal tank. I asked a couple of people if it would be wise to purchase a male mandarin and got diffrent opinions and no 2 were the same on top of these people not showing very good knowlege of fish in general. I was hoping to get peoples opnion that have experience with mandarin to maybe help with this decision.

Thanks

[Fishfirst]

My first answer would be no.

Unless you are able to say yes to the following conditions

-both of the mandarins will eat frozen foods (not just brineshrimp though), and you plan on not getting any other fish that competes for food with them. (pretty much ruling out all fish)

-you have an unusually large refugium (50 gallons +), where pods have been breeding over the last 6-12 months and are now ready at the mandarins request for food.

-you are able to order live pods (possibly very expensive) every week to ensure these guys get enough food

Make sure you get a male/female pair, they aren't necessarily hard to tell apart, but same sex pairs are a no no.

[flamingo]

I wouldn't keep them in a 15 gallon to begin with, a 30 gallon would be better. 30 gallon may even be pushing it for the pair, a 15 is defintiely not good for two of them.

A ample supply of copepods MUST be needed before purchase. If you get one you want to have a big supply because even though more have been known to eat frozen yours may not, a lot of peoplles who do eat frozen die from malnutrition. Something frozen brine shrimp isn't an adequite diet.

I dont think it owuld be wise to get a male now...wait till you get abigger tank with enough lr and a goody supply of copepods first. Getting a male is actually wuite easy, the male has a large extended dorsal fin. If you get another female than they will quarrel and eventually one will be dead and the other will be very battered up.

Is your eating frozen food?

I would give you the link to aprofile I wrote on them but obviously its doing fine! good luck with it...

[TheOldSalt]

The odds of getting a male that eats the same stuff as your female aren't very good. Insist on watching the male eat heartily before buying it.

Even if you do find a fish with a chance to survive, those chances will be severely reduced by putting those two fish together in a 15 gallon tank. It's doable, sure, but not very smart. One mandarin needs about 40 gallons unless you are feeding it very wll and it's actually eating what you're offering. If you luck up and get a pair that eats, then you can certainly keep them in a 15 reef by themselves and even breed them, but only if you're ready to do the large amount of work needed to keep the water clean despite the huge influx of food, most of which will be wasted.

[heatherhoge]

Thank you all for the helpfull info. I am going to hold off on getting another one. My female is doing good but I see what you mean by lots of wasted foods. I am letting algey grow on the back of the glass she like to nibble on it I have noticed. She is gaining weight but very slowly. Were can you buy the pods in quantity? Do they come on rocks or by them selves? Maybe this might help her gain weight faster. She had a concaved stomach when I bought her but now its flat so she needs a little more weight. I bought her because she was so skinny and felt bad for her. The store of course said she would do ok in a 15 gal and I know not to listen to stores but I figuared I would at least fatten her up then maybe sell her to a good home. I tend to do rescuses of fish then get them healthy then sell. I would love to keep her but I don't know if what I have is sufficiant for her. So if I have to buy pods I will but our stores don't sell around here.

[flamingo]

If you have to buy some just of course search on google.

There are some sites devoted to it but I cant remmeber them , i know that they are very expensive though. Oone was like 30 plus shipping for a little bottle with a couple of them. Youd probably have to culture them first to get any substantial number of them.

[2complicated]

i talk to a marine biologist about this..... he said 1 mandarin with no other fish in a 55 because most of them eat pods... which grow on corals normally.

[TheOldSalt]

www.reef-revolution.com sells cultured copepods.

[flamingo]

Well than that marine biologist doesn't know what the heck hes talking about.

THere are many views and people have done many studies on this.
Most fish wont even notice the copepods, the only reason mandarins do is because they have specialized eyes and mouths that are designed for that sole purpose.
Others like the six lined wrasse eat copepods too because they also have adapted to eat smaller crustaceans off of the rock.

One site even had long term success with keeping one in a 10 gallon with a big refugium. It's not the size of the fish that requires it to have a big tank but because if it was in a smaller tank it would use up its food source very quickly and the pods wouldn't have enough space to breed.

Copepods can breed anywhere. Some will even go into your filter pads and breed. If they really only grew on corals than there wouldn't be as much of them since not a lot of people even keep corals. Plus corals wouldn't have enough surface or crevices and hiding places to give the copepods a chance to get away and breed. They are morelikely to breed in macroalgae and snad beds or even the crevices in live rock.
Thats why whenever you introduce new live rock or macro into your tank you get a bloom of them.

Mandarins are actually quite easy to keep...it's the copepodss that are hard. The mandarin itself doesn't have great needs but the copepods need to be not only present but have a great amount of hising places and enough food to srvive and create large numbers of them. Before ever getting a mandarin do your research on copepods first, it makes a heck of a difference and you'll be more knowledgeable on the subject and know how they breed and how to provide the right care for them.

[TheOldSalt]

Originally Posted by flamingonhot

Mandarins are actually quite easy to keep...it's the copepodss that are hard. The mandarin itself doesn't have great needs but the copepods need to be not only present but have a great amount of hising places and enough food to srvive and create large numbers of them. Before ever getting a mandarin do your research on copepods first, it makes a heck of a difference and you'll be more knowledgeable on the subject and know how they breed and how to provide the right care for them.

You know what? That's the best description of the situation I think I've ever read. Good job!

( so..any insight on Dendronephthya? LOL! )

[flamingo]

thank you!

Sometimes I get a little into what I say lol.