Do you have a Green Mandarin fish?

henjon · 11/29/2006, 02:19 AM

Hi.

I am considering purchasing a Green Mandarin fish, but i have heard rumors that they can be quite difficult to feed. Do you have experiences with mandarin fishes eating frozen and dry foods? Also.. how do a mandarin fish do in a tank with alot of current? and is it compatible with blenny's? or do they fight?

serpentman · 11/29/2006, 05:48 AM

Mandarins do ok with a lot of flow. However, feeding is another story. Although it is possible to get them eat frozen, most do not. They feed off tiny copepods living in your tank. Therefore, you must have enough established live rock to generate enough food for your mandarin. Most recommend having a tank up for at least 6mo to provide adequate pod availability. However, your tank size, the presence of a refugium and amount of established LR will really determine your ability to keep a mandarin.

DrBDC · 11/29/2006, 06:07 AM

What size tank and how many lb's of rock do you have? Also, do you have a refugium for pod to grow?

2fishy · 11/29/2006, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by henjon
Hi.

I am considering purchasing a Green Mandarin fish, but i have heard rumors that they can be quite difficult to feed. Do you have experiences with mandarin fishes eating frozen and dry foods? Also.. how do a mandarin fish do in a tank with alot of current? and is it compatible with blenny's? or do they fight?

I have a mandarin, but I was a lucky one that was able to keep this one since August. Maybe she just doesn't know how difficult she is supposed to be!

I would definately listen to the fact that they are a more difficult fish to keep, only because I am constantly hearing of ones that don't live and I was constantly worrying that it wasn't going to make it. The one I bought was very healthy looking and still remains that way. She has never been sunken in on the sides, and eats frozen foods. I have seen other ones that you can visibly see that they most likely are not thriving and are sunken in on the sides. It's very sad to see, but I wouldn't recommend buying those because unless you see it eat frozen foods, I would assume that it is doomed and/or it should be purchased by someone who has an older tank with lots of pods. I also have a tail spot blenny and the mandarin does just fine with it. They have been right next to each other quite often and don't seemed bothered at all.

DrBDC · 11/29/2006, 08:39 AM

Many will recommend 100 lb's live rock per dragonette and others such as Anthony Calfo recommend a minimum of 200 lbs live rock per dragonette. That's only provided you have no other pod competitors ESPECIALLY wrasse's.

What happens is they starve to death slowly over about a year to a year and a half w/o adequate copepods. Even when they look good you can't say it's a sucess for over a year.

2fishy · 11/29/2006, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DrBDC
Many will recommend 100 lb's live rock per dragonette and others such as Anthony Calfo recommend a minimum of 200 lbs live rock per dragonette. That's only provided you have no other pod competitors ESPECIALLY wrasse's.

What happens is they starve to death slowly over about a year to a year and a half w/o adequate copepods. Even when they look good you can't say it's a sucess for over a year.

That's sad! Well, I will keep my fingers crossed for my little one! I might have to set a mandarin diner after all!

110galreef · 11/29/2006, 09:33 AM

I've tried two over the years in a 110 gallon reef tank with over 150# LR in a well established tank and they never lived really long?

Supposedly a fudge will help a lot! I don't run one.

sloshesv · 11/29/2006, 09:43 AM

No, I don't. I do have a rock hopper blenny in my 55 that we all love.

GreyDC · 11/29/2006, 10:00 AM

Actually, its one of the best fishes i have had.......I have had one now for about 8 months and had great luck...my little guy even made it through a big ich outbreak....Live rock is definitely key to their survival, mostly from a hiding perspective but I have seen the biggest factor being the what food competitors you have in the tank. My mandarin is a 75 reef with two blennies, two clowns, potters angel, a kole and hippo tang...... Make sure you watch your feeding to make sure enough food makes it to the bottom or lays on the rock......The mandarin will come out after everyone else feeds and pick up the remainder....

Good luck if you decide to get one!!

2swift · 11/29/2006, 10:20 AM

I can tell you of our Stoner & Lenny- Green & Scooter.
We Started this hobby specifically for mandarin.
Well after a lot of waiting and research we decided we were ready to put theory into practice so we went to several lfs looking
for our mandarin, we must have looked at 30 or 40 over a period of weeks until we found one that would take prepared foods at the lfs. AND SNACTHED HIM UP!
He and are scooter blenny have done well grazing on pods in our tank but are always front and center at feeding time.

Foods they both will eat in our case includes
1.Pods
2.Blood worms
3.Miyis shrimp
4.Brine shrimp

We have had them for 8-9 month's and stoner is a fat happy mandarin. If you have any specific ? Fill free to ask.

jimbo045 · 11/29/2006, 10:38 AM

I think they are safe, mine do not fight with blennies. They seem to love to just pick off the live rock. I use flakes, frozen brine. JD

ToTaLCHaoS13 · 11/29/2006, 02:09 PM

Word of caution - do not treat mandarins with any copper based medications...wish I had know that little tid-bit before...

trippyl · 11/29/2006, 02:51 PM

just fyi, my GS mandarin never touches the food i feed, he lives entirely off of the established life on the live rock. My tank was up for nearly 3 years when I got him. Don't count on them eating regular food...

Keiths_Reefs · 11/29/2006, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by trippyl
Don't count on them eating regular food...

Totally agree. To add to that, if you have to ask if your tank can handle one chances are the answer is no . . .

2fishy · 11/29/2006, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GreyDC
Actually, its one of the best fishes i have had.......I have had one now for about 8 months and had great luck...my little guy even made it through a big ich outbreak....Live rock is definitely key to their survival, mostly from a hiding perspective but I have seen the biggest factor being the what food competitors you have in the tank. My mandarin is a 75 reef with two blennies, two clowns, potters angel, a kole and hippo tang...... Make sure you watch your feeding to make sure enough food makes it to the bottom or lays on the rock......The mandarin will come out after everyone else feeds and pick up the remainder....

Good luck if you decide to get one!!

I do this too! I shut down my filter and pump and only leave one pump running every time that I feed the tank. It seems to allow her to get a chance to catch all of the food and actually seems to get a lot of it. Mine, like 2swift's seems to prefer brine over mysis for some reason. What ToTaLCHaoS13 is an important thing to remember, medicating this fish with copper based medications (not sure if it includes all medications) will cause this fish to build up and excessive slime coat and will basically cause this fish to suffocate in its own slime coat. If I remember right, this also included blennys.

Im14abeer · 11/30/2006, 12:08 AM

A link from the home page...

http://www.reefcentral.com/modules.p...showpage&pid=3

An awesome fish, but make sure you can meet it's needs BEFORE you bring one home. This is true of all livestock, for mandrins it goes double.

Snarkys · 11/30/2006, 11:38 PM

never count on being able to train one to eat prepared foods as a mainstay of their diet. This is pretty uncommon and pretty unnatural. This is just a guess but I would have to believe that their digestive track is designed to digest tiny little pods and not large pieces of mysis ( couple hundred times the size of a pod) or other prepared foods, which means even if they do eat it they might not really get all that much nutrition from it.

Mine will eat prepaired foods if it just happens to fall in front of his face but he certainly wont seek it out like the other fish at feeding time.

however feeding them can be as simple as throwing a hang on fuge, like the ones CPR makes, on the back of your tank with some cheato and LR rubble . No reason to try and fight nature when the solution is so simple.

TheORKINMan · 11/30/2006, 11:50 PM

I think there is a lot of over paranoia about Mandarin feeding out there. Saying that Mandarins need 200lbs of Live Rock each seems like ridiculous hyperbole quite frankly. Assuming you don't have competitors for pods as food in your tank what matters is if your reef is geared towards generating pods, not the poundage of live rock.

Live rock is important, but a tank that has a lot of macroalgaes and bottom surface area can feed a mandarin with much less then 200lbs of live rock. Having rubble zones where pods can safely reproduce where the Mandarin can't get to them is key.

josh holt · 12/01/2006, 12:26 AM

i have a mandarin thats been in my 125 for about a 1.5 years. he has made it through two moves and a change over to a bare bottom tank.he is healthy and i seem him grazing on the rocks all the time.mine will not accept any food put in the tank.when i fist got him he started to suck up do to a lack of pods. switched over to a fuge and got some pod packed algae from a fellow reefer and in no time he was fat and happy. by the way i bought my tank used. it was o four year old fowlr but still no pods until i got the fuge.

HippieSmell · 12/01/2006, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by GreyDC
Actually, its one of the best fishes i have had.......I have had one now for about 8 months and had great luck...my little guy even made it through a big ich outbreak

That's because they're not susceptible to ich.

DrBDC · 12/01/2006, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by TheORKINMan
I think there is a lot of over paranoia about Mandarin feeding out there. Saying that Mandarins need 200lbs of Live Rock each seems like ridiculous hyperbole quite frankly. Assuming you don't have competitors for pods as food in your tank what matters is if your reef is geared towards generating pods, not the poundage of live rock.

Live rock is important, but a tank that has a lot of macroalgaes and bottom surface area can feed a mandarin with much less then 200lbs of live rock. Having rubble zones where pods can safely reproduce where the Mandarin can't get to them is key.

The experts are called experts for some reason. Why don't you put a poll up and see how many have them for a minimum of 5 years and how many lbs of live rock they have? You'll be hard pressed to find any making it that long w/o that much rock. And that's a bare minimum to even consider it a sucess when talking about any saltwater fish. Really 10 years is the beginning of success. Kind of like saying it's OK to have a tang in a 30!

And those numbers are already considering no competitors especially wrasse's.

TheORKINMan · 12/01/2006, 06:55 AM

So hardly any Mandarins make it in tanks that have less then 200 lbs of live rock is what you're asserting? I bet there's actually quite a few people that disagree on the 200lb mark :| Do they need a lot? Most definately, but it seems such a sensative issue to some that IMO they exagerate the requirements in order to basically scare people away from them.

They are difficult fish to keep and maintain, they require effort, but you do not need to convert your basement into a giant aquarium to accomodate them. I would wager a vast majority of Mandarin deaths in the home aquarium are related to impulse buys, ignorance, and laziness rather then a lack of a swimming pool sized aquarium full of LR.

DrBDC · 12/01/2006, 07:49 AM

Well I never went with 200 lbs myself. I would agree with at least 75-100 that is very well established. And I also feel as well that when they say 200, it's because we always try to push it and they know we'll try it with less. I personally have 2 with about 225-250 lbs of rock but it's only been a little over a year with my pair so I can't comment much on the long term yet. I also have a sump larger than my display though and about 1/2 my rock is back there.

But at 2 lbs of rock per gallon that opens most up people with 90 gallons or larger if they go with the higher recomm. even. I would probably push a 55 with 100 lbs but I'd be nervous. I def. wouldn't do a pair with that low amount and still look for one with diverse eating habits.

Some people have found that they like various forms of roe. I have some shrimp roe from the same asian market I get my nori from but I haven't witnessed them eating any directly. I also have some black something roe from the grocery store that I haven't witnessed them eating either. I know that after I feed either one that they are moving in high speed around the rocks but they may just be feeding on the pods that are coming out in response to the food. My clownfish, nass. snails, pistol shrimp and serpent star def. like the black caviar!

TheORKINMan · 12/01/2006, 08:22 AM

Haha actually there is an Asian market that shares a wall with one of my LFS, I think I'm going to stop in when my LFS gets Mandarins and see if they'll let me try to feed them some shrimp roe to see if they take it

Keiths_Reefs · 12/01/2006, 08:47 AM

I do see what TheORKINMan is saying. You should be focused more on an environment that is suited for pod reporduction rather than actual lbs of rock, x amount of surface area, etc. Someone with a gravity return fuge with macro and LR rubble is going to be better off than someone with rock everywhere in the main tank (though a nice even balance of both is optimal).

11/29/2006, 02:19 AM	#1
henjon Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 42	Do you have a Green Mandarin fish? Hi. I am considering purchasing a Green Mandarin fish, but i have heard rumors that they can be quite difficult to feed. Do you have experiences with mandarin fishes eating frozen and dry foods? Also.. how do a mandarin fish do in a tank with alot of current? and is it compatible with blenny's? or do they fight?

11/29/2006, 05:48 AM	#2
serpentman part time superhero Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Deep in the Heart of the Snowbelt (NE OHIO) Posts: 5,698	Mandarins do ok with a lot of flow. However, feeding is another story. Although it is possible to get them eat frozen, most do not. They feed off tiny copepods living in your tank. Therefore, you must have enough established live rock to generate enough food for your mandarin. Most recommend having a tank up for at least 6mo to provide adequate pod availability. However, your tank size, the presence of a refugium and amount of established LR will really determine your ability to keep a mandarin. __________________ BS in Marine Bio ('96), First SW tank in 1992. Current Tank(s) 300g SPS with 90g frag tank and 40 anemone tank - decommissioned 46g LPS/Softy Cube 300g FOWLR under construction - decommissioned

11/29/2006, 06:07 AM	#3
DrBDC Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ballwin, Missouri Posts: 10,358	What size tank and how many lb's of rock do you have? Also, do you have a refugium for pod to grow? __________________ Some drink at the fountain of knowledge, some just gargle, but most are rabid. Current Tank Info: 180g sps+75 softy/lps on one system tunze's, seio's, mjmods, aquacontroller w/add ons, 2X400 XM10000 and 3X160 vho actinic, 110g sump, 110 frag tank, Geo Beckett and other stuff

11/29/2006, 08:39 AM	#5
DrBDC Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ballwin, Missouri Posts: 10,358	Many will recommend 100 lb's live rock per dragonette and others such as Anthony Calfo recommend a minimum of 200 lbs live rock per dragonette. That's only provided you have no other pod competitors ESPECIALLY wrasse's. What happens is they starve to death slowly over about a year to a year and a half w/o adequate copepods. Even when they look good you can't say it's a sucess for over a year. __________________ Some drink at the fountain of knowledge, some just gargle, but most are rabid. Current Tank Info: 180g sps+75 softy/lps on one system tunze's, seio's, mjmods, aquacontroller w/add ons, 2X400 XM10000 and 3X160 vho actinic, 110g sump, 110 frag tank, Geo Beckett and other stuff

11/29/2006, 09:43 AM	#8
sloshesv Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: ft myers, fl Posts: 723	No, I don't. I do have a rock hopper blenny in my 55 that we all love. __________________ It's just sloshesv, your Honor Current Tank Info: 55 gallon reef, 20 gal seahorse and leaf fish

11/29/2006, 09:33 AM	#7
110galreef Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Toledo OH Posts: 2,466	I've tried two over the years in a 110 gallon reef tank with over 150# LR in a well established tank and they never lived really long? Supposedly a fudge will help a lot! I don't run one.

11/29/2006, 10:00 AM	#9
GreyDC Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Washington DC Posts: 261	Actually, its one of the best fishes i have had.......I have had one now for about 8 months and had great luck...my little guy even made it through a big ich outbreak....Live rock is definitely key to their survival, mostly from a hiding perspective but I have seen the biggest factor being the what food competitors you have in the tank. My mandarin is a 75 reef with two blennies, two clowns, potters angel, a kole and hippo tang...... Make sure you watch your feeding to make sure enough food makes it to the bottom or lays on the rock......The mandarin will come out after everyone else feeds and pick up the remainder.... Good luck if you decide to get one!!

11/29/2006, 10:20 AM	#10
2swift Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Ruskin,FLA Posts: 876	I can tell you of our Stoner & Lenny- Green & Scooter. We Started this hobby specifically for mandarin. Well after a lot of waiting and research we decided we were ready to put theory into practice so we went to several lfs looking for our mandarin, we must have looked at 30 or 40 over a period of weeks until we found one that would take prepared foods at the lfs. AND SNACTHED HIM UP! He and are scooter blenny have done well grazing on pods in our tank but are always front and center at feeding time. Foods they both will eat in our case includes 1.Pods 2.Blood worms 3.Miyis shrimp 4.Brine shrimp We have had them for 8-9 month's and stoner is a fat happy mandarin. If you have any specific ? Fill free to ask. __________________ Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Current Tank Info: 150g with twin FX4 canisters-Jebao 90Wave maker-2 AQUASKY Fluval Lights-AquaMaxx TS-2 Sulfur Denitrator

11/29/2006, 10:38 AM	#11
jimbo045 Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Aiea, HI. Posts: 1,788	I think they are safe, mine do not fight with blennies. They seem to love to just pick off the live rock. I use flakes, frozen brine. JD

11/29/2006, 02:09 PM	#12
ToTaLCHaoS13 Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Cartersville, GA Posts: 379	Word of caution - do not treat mandarins with any copper based medications...wish I had know that little tid-bit before...

11/29/2006, 02:51 PM	#13
trippyl Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Here Posts: 1,106	just fyi, my GS mandarin never touches the food i feed, he lives entirely off of the established life on the live rock. My tank was up for nearly 3 years when I got him. Don't count on them eating regular food...

11/30/2006, 12:08 AM	#16
Im14abeer BRILLIANT! Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Posts: 406	A link from the home page... http://www.reefcentral.com/modules.p...showpage&pid=3 An awesome fish, but make sure you can meet it's needs BEFORE you bring one home. This is true of all livestock, for mandrins it goes double. __________________ Veni, vidi, fishi Current Tank Info: Mixed 235 "reefin' in the corner." Reefbreeders 48 & 32. 2x Tunze 6255 on a 7096, Basement sump, Avast cs1, mag 18 return. Chaeto, kalk.

11/30/2006, 11:38 PM	#17
Snarkys RC Sponsor Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Minneapolis Posts: 3,516	never count on being able to train one to eat prepared foods as a mainstay of their diet. This is pretty uncommon and pretty unnatural. This is just a guess but I would have to believe that their digestive track is designed to digest tiny little pods and not large pieces of mysis ( couple hundred times the size of a pod) or other prepared foods, which means even if they do eat it they might not really get all that much nutrition from it. Mine will eat prepaired foods if it just happens to fall in front of his face but he certainly wont seek it out like the other fish at feeding time. however feeding them can be as simple as throwing a hang on fuge, like the ones CPR makes, on the back of your tank with some cheato and LR rubble . No reason to try and fight nature when the solution is so simple. __________________ Ryan B BRSTV & 52 Weeks of Reefing

11/30/2006, 11:50 PM	#18
TheORKINMan Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 423	I think there is a lot of over paranoia about Mandarin feeding out there. Saying that Mandarins need 200lbs of Live Rock each seems like ridiculous hyperbole quite frankly. Assuming you don't have competitors for pods as food in your tank what matters is if your reef is geared towards generating pods, not the poundage of live rock. Live rock is important, but a tank that has a lot of macroalgaes and bottom surface area can feed a mandarin with much less then 200lbs of live rock. Having rubble zones where pods can safely reproduce where the Mandarin can't get to them is key.

12/01/2006, 12:26 AM	#19
josh holt Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: redding Posts: 322	i have a mandarin thats been in my 125 for about a 1.5 years. he has made it through two moves and a change over to a bare bottom tank.he is healthy and i seem him grazing on the rocks all the time.mine will not accept any food put in the tank.when i fist got him he started to suck up do to a lack of pods. switched over to a fuge and got some pod packed algae from a fellow reefer and in no time he was fat and happy. by the way i bought my tank used. it was o four year old fowlr but still no pods until i got the fuge. __________________ reef tanks are such a headache yet i keep coming back to them. Current Tank Info: 40 gal sps tank (36"Lx15"Dx18"H), dual 175 mh lights w 15k iwasaki bulbs, 20gal sump, bubble magus nac6 skimmer, blue line hd external return pump feeding the tank through two 1/2" penductors, two koralia 1 powerheads + more on the wish list.

12/01/2006, 06:55 AM	#22
TheORKINMan Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 423	So hardly any Mandarins make it in tanks that have less then 200 lbs of live rock is what you're asserting? I bet there's actually quite a few people that disagree on the 200lb mark :\| Do they need a lot? Most definately, but it seems such a sensative issue to some that IMO they exagerate the requirements in order to basically scare people away from them. They are difficult fish to keep and maintain, they require effort, but you do not need to convert your basement into a giant aquarium to accomodate them. I would wager a vast majority of Mandarin deaths in the home aquarium are related to impulse buys, ignorance, and laziness rather then a lack of a swimming pool sized aquarium full of LR.

12/01/2006, 07:49 AM	#23
DrBDC Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ballwin, Missouri Posts: 10,358	Well I never went with 200 lbs myself. I would agree with at least 75-100 that is very well established. And I also feel as well that when they say 200, it's because we always try to push it and they know we'll try it with less. I personally have 2 with about 225-250 lbs of rock but it's only been a little over a year with my pair so I can't comment much on the long term yet. I also have a sump larger than my display though and about 1/2 my rock is back there. But at 2 lbs of rock per gallon that opens most up people with 90 gallons or larger if they go with the higher recomm. even. I would probably push a 55 with 100 lbs but I'd be nervous. I def. wouldn't do a pair with that low amount and still look for one with diverse eating habits. Some people have found that they like various forms of roe. I have some shrimp roe from the same asian market I get my nori from but I haven't witnessed them eating any directly. I also have some black something roe from the grocery store that I haven't witnessed them eating either. I know that after I feed either one that they are moving in high speed around the rocks but they may just be feeding on the pods that are coming out in response to the food. My clownfish, nass. snails, pistol shrimp and serpent star def. like the black caviar! __________________ Some drink at the fountain of knowledge, some just gargle, but most are rabid. Current Tank Info: 180g sps+75 softy/lps on one system tunze's, seio's, mjmods, aquacontroller w/add ons, 2X400 XM10000 and 3X160 vho actinic, 110g sump, 110 frag tank, Geo Beckett and other stuff

12/01/2006, 08:22 AM	#24
TheORKINMan Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 423	Haha actually there is an Asian market that shares a wall with one of my LFS, I think I'm going to stop in when my LFS gets Mandarins and see if they'll let me try to feed them some shrimp roe to see if they take it

12/01/2006, 08:47 AM	#25
Keiths_Reefs Registered Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Winnebago, IL Posts: 396	I do see what TheORKINMan is saying. You should be focused more on an environment that is suited for pod reporduction rather than actual lbs of rock, x amount of surface area, etc. Someone with a gravity return fuge with macro and LR rubble is going to be better off than someone with rock everywhere in the main tank (though a nice even balance of both is optimal).