XFeathersx
Community Member
Back when I was first looking into getting a mandarin I wish there had been more documented "case studies" of people keeping them. My research in early 2020 and now pretty much leads to the same conclusions:
1) People who say they cannot be kept in an aquarium under 75 gallons and less than 2 years old because they eat "thousands" of copepods every day
2) People who say they have kept them in 30 gallons or smaller but also raise copepods and supplement every day
3) People who keep them in various size tanks and supplement with pods every month or every other month
So I wanted to share my experience with a Biota mandarin in a 32 gallon Biocube. Some of you will probably balk at what I did, but with so much of this hobby undocumented or not agreed upon, sometimes we have to learn as we go.
In the beginning...
I setup my first saltwater tank, a 32 gallon Biocube, at the start of March 2020 after having kept a 75 gallon freshwater tank for over 7 years (still have the 2 black fin tetras that I cycled it with). I started with dry rock and dry sand and cycled it with fish food. In April I put a clean up crew, 2 ORA clowns, 4-pack of soft corals from LiveAquaria, macroalgae, and seeded with 5280 pods from Algaebarn and started dosing phytoplankton. (Looking back I realize that was pretty quick to do all of that, ha). But I knew I wanted a mandarin and realized I needed to start from the bottom up with the ecosystem so I was sold on phyto from the get-go. Anyways everything survived so things were going smoothly for me. Over the weeks I watched lots of pods crawling over the glass and the rockwork and everywhere, so I was excited to get a mandarin. I knew a captive bred one was going to have a better chance of survival, and I knew that my tank was too young to sustain the booming pod population and I was expecting population cycles. So a captive bred mandarin from Biota (the only one I could find) was what I selected.
My Biota mandarin arrive at the beginning of June, just 4 months after starting the tank (I can hear some of you gasp). I had read reviews that it was going to be tiny and I was prepared with a small acclimation tank to keep it isolated and to train it to frozen foods and pellets. I didn't realize it was going to arrive barely 0.5-0.75 inches long. It was miniscule! So I was very happy I had the acclimation tank. I put a small 1.5" PVC T-joint in the box and a few small rocks as habitat for him. Unfortunately it would not eat the frozen mysis or brine shrimp I gave it, though I did watch it suck a piece into its mouth and spit it out. The shrimps were definitely too big for it. I put some Hikari pellets "S" size and he wouldn't eat those either. I was prepared though and had ordered brine shrimp eggs from Algaebarn as well and hatched those out and he ate those readily. At that point I had resolved to wait to train him to eat frozen until he had gotten bigger. So over a 6 month period I had a jar on my counter where I hatched brine shrimp and fed them to him once every day, or every other day while I waited for the eggs to hatch. I would feed the brine shrimp selcon or phyto that I had started culturing myself.
Over those 6 months he definitely got bigger, he is probably a little over 1.5 inches now. But with greater size comes a bigger appetite, and I was noticing he wasn't as round as he had been when he was smaller. Today my tank is about 10 months old now and has an established copepod population as I haven't reseeded since the beginning but I still see tons of movement on the glass, sand, algae, and rocks. So the other day I chose to take my mandarin out of the box with the hope that he will gain more meat by feasting on pods all day instead of relying on my meager once or twice a day feedings. I still plan to hatch brine shrimp once a week and turn off the pumps and let the tank go crazy, but the reality is the mandarin probably won't benefit greatly from that as I have the 2 clowns, a green banded goby, and 2 barnacle blennies that all have good appetites. While the mandarin is the only focused pod eater in the tank (and will remain that way) I'm not super confident I have a pod population that can withstand a mandarin so I've subscribed to the Algaebarn pod + phyto combo box every other month. This costs $40.50 each box so keeping a mandarin will be more expensive than keeping other fish, but for me I'm fine paying. Though I'm hoping the mandarin will see the rest of the fish eating the frozen cocktail I make for the tank 3 times a week and start nibbling on those soon.
So, that is my 6 month run with a Biota mandarin so far. Hopefully this helps others make the decision on whether to pursue caring for this fish or not. I'll update again in another 6 months. If you have any questions let me know.
1) People who say they cannot be kept in an aquarium under 75 gallons and less than 2 years old because they eat "thousands" of copepods every day
2) People who say they have kept them in 30 gallons or smaller but also raise copepods and supplement every day
3) People who keep them in various size tanks and supplement with pods every month or every other month
So I wanted to share my experience with a Biota mandarin in a 32 gallon Biocube. Some of you will probably balk at what I did, but with so much of this hobby undocumented or not agreed upon, sometimes we have to learn as we go.
In the beginning...
I setup my first saltwater tank, a 32 gallon Biocube, at the start of March 2020 after having kept a 75 gallon freshwater tank for over 7 years (still have the 2 black fin tetras that I cycled it with). I started with dry rock and dry sand and cycled it with fish food. In April I put a clean up crew, 2 ORA clowns, 4-pack of soft corals from LiveAquaria, macroalgae, and seeded with 5280 pods from Algaebarn and started dosing phytoplankton. (Looking back I realize that was pretty quick to do all of that, ha). But I knew I wanted a mandarin and realized I needed to start from the bottom up with the ecosystem so I was sold on phyto from the get-go. Anyways everything survived so things were going smoothly for me. Over the weeks I watched lots of pods crawling over the glass and the rockwork and everywhere, so I was excited to get a mandarin. I knew a captive bred one was going to have a better chance of survival, and I knew that my tank was too young to sustain the booming pod population and I was expecting population cycles. So a captive bred mandarin from Biota (the only one I could find) was what I selected.
My Biota mandarin arrive at the beginning of June, just 4 months after starting the tank (I can hear some of you gasp). I had read reviews that it was going to be tiny and I was prepared with a small acclimation tank to keep it isolated and to train it to frozen foods and pellets. I didn't realize it was going to arrive barely 0.5-0.75 inches long. It was miniscule! So I was very happy I had the acclimation tank. I put a small 1.5" PVC T-joint in the box and a few small rocks as habitat for him. Unfortunately it would not eat the frozen mysis or brine shrimp I gave it, though I did watch it suck a piece into its mouth and spit it out. The shrimps were definitely too big for it. I put some Hikari pellets "S" size and he wouldn't eat those either. I was prepared though and had ordered brine shrimp eggs from Algaebarn as well and hatched those out and he ate those readily. At that point I had resolved to wait to train him to eat frozen until he had gotten bigger. So over a 6 month period I had a jar on my counter where I hatched brine shrimp and fed them to him once every day, or every other day while I waited for the eggs to hatch. I would feed the brine shrimp selcon or phyto that I had started culturing myself.
Over those 6 months he definitely got bigger, he is probably a little over 1.5 inches now. But with greater size comes a bigger appetite, and I was noticing he wasn't as round as he had been when he was smaller. Today my tank is about 10 months old now and has an established copepod population as I haven't reseeded since the beginning but I still see tons of movement on the glass, sand, algae, and rocks. So the other day I chose to take my mandarin out of the box with the hope that he will gain more meat by feasting on pods all day instead of relying on my meager once or twice a day feedings. I still plan to hatch brine shrimp once a week and turn off the pumps and let the tank go crazy, but the reality is the mandarin probably won't benefit greatly from that as I have the 2 clowns, a green banded goby, and 2 barnacle blennies that all have good appetites. While the mandarin is the only focused pod eater in the tank (and will remain that way) I'm not super confident I have a pod population that can withstand a mandarin so I've subscribed to the Algaebarn pod + phyto combo box every other month. This costs $40.50 each box so keeping a mandarin will be more expensive than keeping other fish, but for me I'm fine paying. Though I'm hoping the mandarin will see the rest of the fish eating the frozen cocktail I make for the tank 3 times a week and start nibbling on those soon.
So, that is my 6 month run with a Biota mandarin so far. Hopefully this helps others make the decision on whether to pursue caring for this fish or not. I'll update again in another 6 months. If you have any questions let me know.
