Advice on getting a mandarin

[jadedog]

Good afternoon,

My tank is about 14ish months old now and I would like to get a mandarin dragonet soon. My stocking is 1 bicolor blenny, 1 firefish, 1 bangai cardinal, 2 clowns, 1 royal gramma and 1 fairy wrasse. The mandarin would be the last fish for this tank. I started with dry rock and sand and have dosed about 6 to 10 jars of copepods. I have extra rocks in my sump and I do see copepods throughout the day on my glass and sand. I'm willing to wait and or dose more copepods before I get this fish. Just wondering if anyone has any insight or advice on these fish. Display is 60gal sump is 25gal

 

[dwest]

My advice would that if you are going to get one, get a captive bred from Biota. I got one a couple of years ago and it was easy to observe in a growout tank for a few months as it ate the pellets they recommended from day one. Mine is in my 180 gallon tank now and appears to live off pods as I’ve never seen it eat anything else in the display.

 

[jadedog]

My advice would that if you are going to get one, get a captive bred from Biota. I got one a couple of years ago and it was easy to observe in a growout tank for a few months as it ate the pellets they recommended from day one. Mine is in my 180 gallon tank now and appears to live off pods as I’ve never seen it eat anything else in the

I would let to get one from them i just would need to setup a growout tank which might be a pain.

 

[slingfox]

I got two Mandsrins from Biota. They came in tiny but I threw them straight into my 112g display + 30g sump system and they did just fine. They pick at the rocks all day. I have never direct fed them.

 

[dwest]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I would bet most people do this.

 

[slingfox]

I got two Mandsrins from Biota. They came in tiny but I threw them straight into my 112g display + 30g sump system and they did just fine. They pick at the rocks all day. I have never direct fed them.

None of my fish bothered the Mandarin’s whatsoever. I also have two wrasse which pick at the rocks as well but the Mandarins have had zero issue getting enough copepods to grow. K
Used to see copepods all over the bottom area of the glass but that stopped happening when I added the wrasse a few years ago. I was worried the Mandsrins wouldn’t get enough to eat so I added one male at first. It doubled in size in one month. That is when I added a female mandarin. They found each other immediately and spend most the the day roaming around together.

 

[jadedog]

I got two Mandsrins from Biota. They came in tiny but I threw them straight into my 112g display + 30g sump system and they did just fine. They pick at the rocks all day. I have never direct fed them.

I might do this but I have a jerk of a bangai cardinal that mock charges and if it was super small he might even try to eat him lol.