Can you keep a mandarin goby in a unestablished tank?

[leo12345]

I want to get a Mandarin goby but my tank is not established its been up for around a month and a half now so i was just going to add those bottles of Copepods every three weeks until i can get it to eat frozen food, will this work? Also theres captive bred ones that are already weaned on frozen food, can they live on frozen food or do they need copepods?

 

[leo12345]

Like 2+ years old for that size tank.

Like 6+ months for a 100g tank.

How about a 50 gallon, I’m going to upgrade my tank to a 50-75 gallon when my coral beauty gets too big

 

[leo12345]

Also just while I’m at it how long does it take a mandarin’s to reach full size? And do the biota ones grow quicker than the wild ones

 

[ZombieEngineer]

How about a 50 gallon, I’m going to upgrade my tank to a 50-75 gallon when my coral beauty gets to big

Like 4-6ish months if you transferred all your rock from this tank and added a bunch of new rock too. 6-9 months if you start it from scratch.

If you're gonna upgrade just go straight for the 90g or 120g. They take up almost the same space (all 4ft long) but open you up to a lot more possibilities with fish. The costs don't go up a lot.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Also just while I’m at it how long does it take a mandarin’s to reach full size? And do the biota ones grow quicker than the wild ones

A baby mandarin has nearly the same feeding requirements as a full size one. This is not the kind of fish you can get now and upgrade later. Tank needs to be ready for it on day 1.

 

[leo12345]

A baby mandarin has nearly the same feeding requirements as a full size one. This is not the kind of fish you can get now and upgrade later. Tank needs to be ready for it on day 1.

No I’m not wondering about the feeding requirements just curious how long they take to grow

 

[Hermie]

mandarins need rock more so than coral you could potentially keep mandarins in a tank with no corals and just live rock; however what is your definition of "unestablished" ? exactly...

 

[leo12345]

Like 4-6ish months if you transferred all your rock from this tank and added a bunch of new rock too. 6-9 months if you start it from scratch.

If you're gonna upgrade just go straight for the 90g or 120g. They take up almost the same space (all 4ft long) but open you up to a lot more possibilities with fish. The costs don't go up a lot.

Is it more maintenance than a 50 gallon

 

[Crustaceon]

Hi, If i get a captive bred one can i just feed it frozen foods and add 2 bottles of pods every month so it gets the nutrients form the pods it needs, i dont have that many fish in my tank so it wont be out competed for food?

Preferably, you want your mandarin to have access to pods and regularly seeding the tank would accomplish that for sure. That’s the most natural way to do it and the healthiest thing for the fish. The question is are you ok with keeping up that routine IF the mandarin doesn’t adjust to taking frozen in addition? This is frequently is the case (It can take me weeks of gently teasing food from 6” away with a pipet before a dragonet takes a single non-copepod bite of food). If regularly pod seeding the tank is too much, I’d highly recommend adding chaeto or some other macro algae or reactor and/or at least plenty of live rock and sand to your system to act as a pod habitat that the mandarin cannot reach. Also, try to avoid keeping fish such as sixline wrasses. They’ll hunt pods as well. As for frozen, I’m always happy seeing my dragonet eat (mine consumes at least 8-10 mysis shrimp so the notion that they don’t have room for food larger than copepods is utter nonsense), but I don’t treat frozen like a substitute for the pods in the tank unless it’s in a situation where I can’t have a live pod population, such as medicated QT.

 

[leo12345]

mandarins need rock more so than coral you could potentially keep mandarins in a tank with no corals and just live rock; however what is your definition of "unestablished" ? exactly...

I was just going to keep this a fowlr tank and by unestablished i mean there is no pods in the tank at all at the moment

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Is it more maintenance than a 50 gallon

Less maintenance actually but slightly higher startup cost, about double salt cost and about 50% more electric use.

 

[Crustaceon]

A baby mandarin has nearly the same feeding requirements as a full size one. This is not the kind of fish you can get now and upgrade later. Tank needs to be ready for it on day 1.

100% correct. The goal is to provide so much real estate in the tank that the mandarin can’t possibly cover enough of it to keep up with the pods reproducing. This is why I use crushed coral for substrate. I gravel vac regularly, so detritus really isn’t an issue and I basically have a pod hotel along the entire bottom of my display.

 

[Hermie]

I was just going to keep this a fowlr tank and by unestablished i mean there is no pods in the tank at all at the moment

no don't do it IMO... put some live rock from somewhere in there and get the pods established first

 

[Tired]

If you're determined to get a mandarin, I'd agree- get some actual live rock. The good ocean stuff, not rock that's been sitting in a bin of water for a month. The biodiversity will help keep nuisance algae away, even if you never have any corals for the algae to bother, and you should get some fun critter types.

 

[leo12345]

.

 

[leo12345]

no don't do it IMO... put some live rock from somewhere in there and get the pods established first

I have live rock in my tank, doesn’t fowlr mean fish only with live rock

 

[Mflores888]

Captive bred mandarins are the way to go

I have a male and female in the tank. Nine months in and they are fat.

 

[polyppal]

 

[Rick's Reviews]

How much does it cost for the 10 bags of pods for you

£17 delivered, usually only £1 each from LFS but I don't have one local enough, I also have a culture setup which this time they are breeding and doing better

 

[Hermie]

I have live rock in my tank, doesn’t fowlr mean fish only with live rock

yes fowlr means fish only with live rock however you said the tank was not established; real live rock highly accelerates a tank's maturity, so when you say live rock what do you mean? Where did you get it? Did it have life on it when you bought it?

 

[Waboss]

I'm not going to yes or no to whether or not you should get one. But I will tell you what worked for me in a 30G tank. I had 2 large cultures of pods running 24x7 and I could easily dump large amounts of pods into the display tank daily. Took a few weeks to get the pod population in the cultures up to where I was confident that I could supply enough food, but it was doable. I had my mandarin in that tank for 3 years, looking pretty fat and happy until I shut that tank down and rehomed him.

This can work very well if you have time get the cultures going and maintain them and understand that you may have to add pods daily (or possibly more).

I supposed you could skip the cultures and just buy pods..........but wow.....that's going to get expensive.