Biota mandarins

[PghReef]

I received a pair of biota mandarins along with a cleaner goby yesterday. Everything arrived alive and moving, no problems with acclimation. I currently have the 3 tiny fish in an acclimation box to observe for a few days before releasing into the DT.

My initial reaction was wow these guys are small! I know I read the reviews and expected a small fish but man they look like they've been hatched a week. The goby is healthy looking and has a chubby belly, I don't have any concerns with him really. The mandarins on the other hand are not as plumped up as I would've expected coming straight from the supplier where they've been hatched and raised. The bellies seem depressed and I'm not sure if it's just the shape of the fish being they're basically fry or if they're emancipated. I saw 1 eat 1 single pellet so far and that is it.

After a couple days I'll release into the main tank. 90 gallons, about 60 lbs of liverock which some a mixture of dry and kpaquatics at setup, and been maturing for over 2 years. Also been feeding phyto daily for a couple months now and have imported all kinds of liverock, livesand, live corals, etc over the years to seed and hopefully build a good population of pods. I'm not sure about copods but I have thousands of amphipods crawling on every surface every night I shine a flashlight in the tank. I'm hoping there's enough natural food to fatten these guys up and get them healthy over the next few months.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I added one mandy to a 50g cube, it definitely put a dent in the amphipod population. It's living the dream currently, not eating prepared foods (had a previous one that did).

 

[PghReef]

Here's some pictures of the little guys