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?

 

[fishguy242]

hi ,would recommend no, wait few months until established, good supply of pod population
mandy's are delicate, patience is key...

 

[Lavey29]

Mandarins eat thousands of pods daily. You would need to add a jar every few days to keep up. They require an established tank with an established pod environment. Frozen food is not enough to supplement their intake requirements. I'd love to have one in my tank but my wrasses eat to many pods so it wouldn't survive.

 

[ReefRondo]

Trust me I’ve tried and it doesn’t end well. Such a shame for these beautiful fish. I even lost one in my 7 year old system pretty quickly due to starvation. I would wait. Let your tank mature and give the mandarin the best life you can.

 

[Nathan Peel]

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?

So the quick answer is no this won't work.
Like others have said, Mandarins can eat thousands upon thousands of copepods per day.
So what can you do? First, regardless of where you get your mandarin you should establish you copepod population. Make sure to implement some kind of refugium. Wait until copepod are covering the aquarium glass.
Second, get a captive-bred mandarin. There are so many reasons this is the right way. First of all, it is just more humane. To me, it feels messed up to take a beautiful healthy from the fish and put it in a tank where it will likely starve to death. Captive-bred mandarins tend to do better in aquariums. Some, like the ones from ORA, even eat pellet food. The eat frozen mysis too. Don't rely on this though because they need to be fed at least 3 times per day (even that's a small amount). That can cause bad nutrient spikes, and the fish can still starve. However, relying on copepods while target feeding them at the same time will work great. You can get an ORA or Biota captive-bred mandarin from AlgaeBarn. You can also get some pods from them too. They have a great DOA policy.
Just be patient. Don't kill a fish and waste money. It's well worth the wait.

 

[leo12345]

So the quick answer is no this won't work.
Like others have said, Mandarins can eat thousands upon thousands of copepods per day.
So what can you do? First, regardless of where you get your mandarin you should establish you copepod population. Make sure to implement some kind of refugium. Wait until copepod are covering the aquarium glass.
Second, get a captive-bred mandarin. There are so many reasons this is the right way. First of all, it is just more humane. To me, it feels messed up to take a beautiful healthy from the fish and put it in a tank where it will likely starve to death. Captive-bred mandarins tend to do better in aquariums. Some, like the ones from ORA, even eat pellet food. The eat frozen mysis too. Don't rely on this though because they need to be fed at least 3 times per day (even that's a small amount). That can cause bad nutrient spikes, and the fish can still starve. However, relying on copepods while target feeding them at the same time will work great. You can get an ORA or Biota captive-bred mandarin from AlgaeBarn. You can also get some pods from them too. They have a great DOA policy.
Just be patient. Don't kill a fish and waste money. It's well worth the wait.

Hi, I was planning on makeing a hob refugium do you know how long after implementing that can i add a mandarin?

 

[jrill]

You can have a captive breed one. I've had a biota mandarin in my tank for a year and a half. Doing great fed twice a day on pellets, frozen and baby brine.

 

[leo12345]

You can have a captive breed one. I've had a biota mandarin in my tank for a year and a half. Doing great fed twice a day on pellets, frozen and baby brine.

Do you feed all those things twice a day or just one different one every day

 

[Nathan Peel]

Hi, I was planning on makeing a hob refugium do you know how long after implementing that can i add a mandarin?

Unfortunately, there's no set amount of time. It all depends on the amount of copepods you add, how you add them, and how much rock is in your tank. How big is your tank?

 

[mikeytrw]

I have a captive bred Mandarin that I got from a very young age. She eats granule pellets, I have a few varieties and lobster eggs as well, but she prefers to peck food off of surfaces so I'm not sure how much of the frozen food she actually eats.

I also dose pods regularly and restock when I don't them crawling about on the glass.

She's very fat so I'm not overly worried about her starving.

 

[jrill]

Do you feed all those things twice a day or just one different one every day

I feed pellets at noon and frozen around 5ish. Brine shrimp I toss in sporadically when it happens to be available for my freshwater tanks.

 

[leo12345]

Unfortunately, there's no set amount of time. It all depends on the amount of copepods you add, how you add them, and how much rock is in your tank. How big is your tank?

29 gallon

 

[steveschuerger]

I put one in the 30 I had , but had added lots of pods over a 2 month period. Then added pods every 2 weeks. It’s an investment. Looking back I probably should’ve gotten an ora mandarin. My little one is now in a 60 gallon and has finally started to eat frozen pods to supplement. I would wait and add lots of pods and let the tank mature a bit. My recommendation would be to add a hang on refugium or small sump and cultivate pods there as well.

 

[Crustaceon]

I've "trained" over a dozen mandarins accept frozen foods for friends in my area who had newer tanks. It can be done, but by no means is it an easy process or a reliable one for someone who doesn't have experience doing so. The mandarin in my display is going on six years eating frozen mysis, brine and even chunks of raw cocktail shrimp that the tangs and trigger rip to shreds. While the tank has pods, I have never seeded it, kept a large amount of rocks, macro algae or anything that would be conducive to keeping a mandarin-sustaining population of pods, which if that's the only your mandarin is eating, is probably multiple bottles of pods PER WEEK worth.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

I cycled my aquriam for about 8 months just to host amphipods population as my overall goal was to maintain a mandarin,the amphipods was eaten very quickly, your aquarium is half the size. The more amphipods the better, if your mind is set on purchasing definitely ask what it eats beforehand so you can maintain a consistent food source, but also invest in live food, I have 10 X bags of live copepods each month delivered. I have artemia culture growing daily. My mandarin and flame scooter love frozen bloodworms I found this out by trying all foods from live to frozen, they love frozen, I still add live copepods and artemia daily though, these guys are fussy eaters.

 

[Alexraptor]

Rather than invest in my food, my suggestion would be to construct and environment that can generate the needed food all on its own, as well as supplemental feeding as needed, and to provide more variation of the diet. (wild dragonets do actually feed on things such as fish and invertebrate eggs, after all.)

This is what my 10G mandarin tank looked like, way back in the day.

My 25G upgrade.

 

[Tired]

You can absolutely keep a mandarin in an un-established tank. If you have the money and time to dose multiple bottles of pods every week, possibly every day. Which is a pretty silly thing to waste money and time on.

Mandarins fed only frozen foods long-term often don't live as long. Their systems are set up to quickly run through and absorb nutrients from incredibly rich foods, not to let food sit in their stomach and absorb, like other fish. Food that's nutritious for other fish isn't enough for them.

Best way to keep a mandarin is to have a tank absolutely teeming with pods, with frozen only as a supplement. A HOB refugium will NOT produce enough pods to keep one fed. As said above, they eat thousands of copepods a day once they reach any particular size. You need an actual refugium.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Rather than invest in my food, my suggestion would be to construct and environment that can generate the needed food all on its own, as well as supplemental feeding as needed, and to provide more variation of the diet. (wild dragonets do actually feed on things such as fish and invertebrate eggs, after all.)

This is what my 10G mandarin tank looked like, way back in the day.

My 25G upgrade.

Can you show me mandarin in this aquriam please

 

[Alexraptor]

Can you show me mandarin in this aquriam please

Gladly.







Unfortunately, after I upgraded to the 25, I decided to get her a male companion, which ended in disaster. They went together just fine for the first few months, but then one day he had just viciously attacked her. She became egg-bound, and died not long after.

She spent her first year in the 10G, and another in the 25, before her passing.

 

[Crustaceon]

You can absolutely keep a mandarin in an un-established tank. If you have the money and time to dose multiple bottles of pods every week, possibly every day. Which is a pretty silly thing to waste money and time on.

Mandarins fed only frozen foods long-term often don't live as long. Their systems are set up to quickly run through and absorb nutrients from incredibly rich foods, not to let food sit in their stomach and absorb, like other fish. Food that's nutritious for other fish isn't enough for them.

Best way to keep a mandarin is to have a tank absolutely teeming with pods, with frozen only as a supplement. A HOB refugium will NOT produce enough pods to keep one fed. As said above, they eat thousands of copepods a day once they reach any particular size. You need an actual refugium.

I've never had an issue with dragonet lifespan on predominantly frozen foods, case in point being my 6 year old, very plump and colorful green mandarin. A lot of the issue with feeding frozen is the fact that other fish in the system will easily out compete the dragonet for food, causing it to shy away during feeding time and waste away. Maybe this factors into the notion that mandarins have to eat constantly. Mine is lucky to find a single pod every five minutes, yet it's still healthy.