Can you keep a mandarin goby in a unestablished tank?

leo12345 · Jul 7, 2022

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?

Tired · Jul 8, 2022

There's a big difference between "live rock" that just has some bacteria, and live rock that's been sitting in the ocean. Rock takes years and years to achieve the kind of maturity we can get on ocean live rock, if it even gets there at all without the ocean biodiversity around it.

leo12345 · Jul 8, 2022

Tired said:
There's a big difference between "live rock" that just has some bacteria, and live rock that's been sitting in the ocean. Rock takes years and years to achieve the kind of maturity we can get on ocean live rock, if it even gets there at all without the ocean biodiversity around it.

Oh i just have Carib sea live rock. i don’t even know where I could get that, especially for cheap because I’m not spending 500 bucks on a rock.

leo12345 · Jul 8, 2022

Rick's Reviews said:
£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

Did you make it yourself or did you buy the culture set up?

Rick's Reviews · Jul 8, 2022

leo12345 said:
Did you make it yourself or did you buy the culture set up?

Lol, thought pics would show home made

so from my previous photo, artemia breeding station from hobby I think £40 I have not tried to replicate but this has deffenitly been a good purchase

Copepods containers are basically 2 X sweet tubs from my local shop (free) and air pump from Amazon for £10 that pipe is split to feed both containers with a peg/ clip at a guess they probably 2-3 litres each, I'm still experimenting, but I'm alot closer to breeding than a month ago

You can buy pod culture kit for about £45

Rick's Reviews · Jul 8, 2022

Also there's a great post by atoll Outdoor pod breeding station, I have followed and experimenting with also, please read this as it's a mind blower in pod culture ING
(Unsure how to link)

Tired · Jul 8, 2022

If the price of live rock is too much for you, you really, really need to think hard about whether you're willing to spend a ton of money on copepods for the rest of this fish's life. Dragonets ought to live somewhere near a decade.

KP in Florida has a package of live rock you can get shipped to your door overnight, $200 for 10lbs and shipping. Tampa Bay has some packages that'll run you more like $140 with shipping for about the same amount. Oceanic live rock ain't cheap, what with needing the overnight shipping and often being in water,

leo12345 · Jul 8, 2022

Tired said:
If the price of live rock is too much for you, you really, really need to think hard about whether you're willing to spend a ton of money on copepods for the rest of this fish's life. Dragonets ought to live somewhere near a decade.

KP in Florida has a package of live rock you can get shipped to your door overnight, $200 for 10lbs and shipping. Tampa Bay has some packages that'll run you more like $140 with shipping for about the same amount. Oceanic live rock ain't cheap, what with needing the overnight shipping and often being in water,

Oh i guess 200 isn’t so bad, ive paid more for stupider things. Is 10 pounds enough or do i need more.

Tired · Jul 9, 2022

10 pounds of oceanic live rock should be enough to seed most non-absurd sizes of tank.

Let me be clear: this does not make your tank ready for a mandarin. That tank is never going to be a good size for a mandarin, unless a large refugium is attached. This just helps speed its maturity along. You still need to either start on a refugium, or be very, very certain that you have the money and time to keep a mandarin in an inadequately sized tank from starving to death. It's trickier than feeding baby fish is. Unless you can find somewhere selling fish eggs or another prepared suitable product, you're going to need to buy a /lot/ of copepods. You'll probably need copepods anyway, Biota mandarins come in tiny and may not be able to handle any prepared foods.

Frankly, it'd probably be cheaper in the long run (i.e. the not needing to buy copepods) to just upgrade the tank to a size that can support enough pods to keep a mandarin fed. You'd still be best off with live rock, but a mandarin staying fed in a non-nano tank is much more doable. Or you could add a refugium nearly the size of the display, which is definitely going to be cheaper than buying pods long-term, and has the bonus of being a good place to keep a cool crab or similar animal.

leo12345 · Jul 9, 2022

Tired said:
10 pounds of oceanic live rock should be enough to seed most non-absurd sizes of tank.

Let me be clear: this does not make your tank ready for a mandarin. That tank is never going to be a good size for a mandarin, unless a large refugium is attached. This just helps speed its maturity along. You still need to either start on a refugium, or be very, very certain that you have the money and time to keep a mandarin in an inadequately sized tank from starving to death. It's trickier than feeding baby fish is. Unless you can find somewhere selling fish eggs or another prepared suitable product, you're going to need to buy a /lot/ of copepods. You'll probably need copepods anyway, Biota mandarins come in tiny and may not be able to handle any prepared foods.

Frankly, it'd probably be cheaper in the long run (i.e. the not needing to buy copepods) to just upgrade the tank to a size that can support enough pods to keep a mandarin fed. You'd still be best off with live rock, but a mandarin staying fed in a non-nano tank is much more doable. Or you could add a refugium nearly the size of the display, which is definitely going to be cheaper than buying pods long-term, and has the bonus of being a good place to keep a cool crab or similar animal.

I’m was just going to get a biota mandiran and just feed it pellets, frozen copepods and live copepods here a there until I upgrade because ive heard a lot of people be successful doing that. I would make a refugium but i dont have any space for one because my tank is not on a fish tank stand its just on a regular table with no doors to hide the refugium thats why HOB is my only option.

Tired · Jul 9, 2022

The thing is, a mandarin living for a couple years doesn't mean it's going to live its entire natural lifespan on that diet. Pellet foods are for fish that can hold the food in their stomach to digest it, which mandarins don't do.

If you can get the tank full of pods, you might be okay with a baby in there for awhile? But frankly, if you're planning on an upgrade anyway, you should just wait until then to get a mandarin.

leo12345 · Jul 9, 2022

Doctorgori · Jul 9, 2022

I got two mandarins, both in barebottom tanks with little live rock…mine were not captive bred but both learned to eat frozen/prepared food…. one is over 3yrs old and looks fine
Not sure I’d endorse doing this, just providing a sample that it can work

Tired · Jul 10, 2022

The thing is, it's known that a mandarin can live a few years on frozen foods. The question is if mandarins reliably live to their full life expectancy on frozen foods. Your data point is only useful for the first thing, not the second.

Hermie · Jul 10, 2022

Tired said:
If the price of live rock is too much for you, you really, really need to think hard about whether you're willing to spend a ton of money on copepods for the rest of this fish's life. Dragonets ought to live somewhere near a decade.

KP in Florida has a package of live rock you can get shipped to your door overnight, $200 for 10lbs and shipping. Tampa Bay has some packages that'll run you more like $140 with shipping for about the same amount. Oceanic live rock ain't cheap, what with needing the overnight shipping and often being in water,