Green Mandarin

BReefer · Oct 2, 2012

Recently I read an article at the Coral Magazine were it talks about pairing up Mandarins.
I have a male green Mandarin and I am considering the addition of a female to my tank and try to pair them up.

Have any of you guys ever tried doing it?

Another interesting fact the article covers is the "old" idea that all you need is to have a mature tank with enough pods and your mandarin will thrive. This has been put into check.
The biologist who wrote the article mention the importance of training your dragonets to eat prepared food, which i have not done with mine but he looks pretty healthy, "fat", and happy.
The only thing i can say that i did in order to support his feeding needs was a long time ago when i added a bottle of Tigger Pods to the tank and sump.
Up to today (about a 8 months after I added the fish) at night after the lights go out I see a bunch of pods of all sizes and shapes crawling on my rocks and sand. By the way my tank is a 75g with a 20g sump/refugium and it has been running for about 20 months now.

My question is, do any of you guys target feed or trained you madarins to eat prepared food? And for those who never did it like me, how long have you had your dragonet in your tank and how is it looking?

For those who havent read it, this is a great article and it is worth reading it.
Coral - November/December 2011Thanks for your input in advance.

Tomoko Schum · Oct 2, 2012

Thank you for posting the link. I forgot to look for a freebie link they occasionally upload.

As for mating mandarin gobies, I introduced my male and female mandarins quite casually and they usually paired up without any problem. I heard that some females like their males larger than them, but I ended up pairing my female with a smaller male at one time and that worked out fine.

With my first pair, I added a male into a tank first and paired him with a smaller female a few months later. I remember that he pecked fiercely at the female when she first approached him quickly. This really surprised me since mandarins usually look so spacy or nonchalante. She was a feisty young lady ;). She was not hurt but backed off and they went separate ways. They eventually started spawning every night for quite a long time. Then I lost the female when I switched my tank. I added a small male and they started spawning after a few months. I lost my mandarin pairs when I introduced a sixline wrasse to the tank. I added a tiny sixline wrasse thinking that this will distract the big male sixline. When the sixlines seemed to have paired off, I introduced a mandarin pair, a male first and then a female. Unfortunately, I was proven quite wrong about distracting the sixline male. The mandarin pair did not last very long with the big sixline wrasse harrasing them constantly.

The sixline was obviously competing for the same food and thought the mandarins to be a threat. I could never train my mandarins to take prepared food.

Some people say that they can train their mandarin to take parepared food by confining them to a small tank and feeding nothing but prepared food.

I remember 8Ball telling me that his mandarin, which ate frozen food from the beginning, eventually changed and ate live food (pods) only. Then, there was this huge mandarin that shot up to the surface of the deep tank, beating all the other fish, everytime the owner threw in some flake food. You can never tell what fish will do...

My 120 supported a pair of mandarin gobies for four and a half years until I upgraded the tank to 180. There was enough pods in the system (display + sump and fuge) that I did not have to worry about starving my mandarins. My females always looked fat. Your 75 may support a mandarin pair without adding any extra live pods if there is no other pod eating fish.

Target feeding a mandarin may or may not work since they are so nonchalante. They may simply swim right through it. I've seen mine do that with live adult brine shrimp. Since other fish beat them to the live brine, I occasionally fed my pokey mandarins using a turkey baster, but I can only get them to eat a few before other fish bullied their way in.

BReefer · Oct 2, 2012

Thank you Tomoko for your input.

You pointed something that made me worry a bit. About a month ago, in addition to a corcea clam, I added a gold tear drop maxima clam. And despite my efforts to get rid of all the pyramid snails, or any other hitchhiker that could have come with it, I still saw a quite a few snails on my glass at night after the light went out.
The snails could have been there before or not, but the point is, in an attempt to control the snails and the bristle worms population, I got myself a very nice looking Melanurus wrasse. He is about 2" long and my mandarin is slightly bigger than it.
I guess I was overly concerned about the wrasse being reef and shrimp safe that i did not worry too much about the wrasse competing for food with the Mandarin.
Now you got me thinking. I know the little six line wrasse have the tendency to become aggressive therefore becoming a pain in the butt. Not trying to deviate the focus of this thread, but I am now wondering if I made a mistake by adding the wrasse to the tank.

Thanks once again.

Tomoko Schum · Oct 2, 2012

I hear that Melanurus wrasse is a voracious eater. I would offer it a variety of food to keep it satiated so it will leave enough pods in the tank for your mandarin. Has it eaten all the pyramid snails? If the wrasse is fed well, it may not go after pyramid snails...

BReefer · Oct 2, 2012

I havent had a chance to see it yet.

Since I added the Melanurus to the tank, 2 days ago, he dug a whole and it has yet to come out.

JSB · Oct 2, 2012

As not to hijack your thread on a clam/snail tangent (which all of this is sounding familiar to me), I started this thread https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/north-alabama-reef-club/97596-snails-bunches-em.html. Maybe you folks have some input.

CJO · Oct 3, 2012

I trained my male mandarin to eat fish eggs. I kept him in a small breeder cage for about a week. I started feeding him live copepods through a syringe with a tube. I then started mixing in some newly hatched baby brine shrimp. Then moved to frozen bbs. And finally started adding in smelt eggs. By the end of 2 weeks, he was eating it all.

CJ

Tomoko Schum · Oct 5, 2012

I trained my male mandarin to eat fish eggs. I kept him in a small breeder cage for about a week.

What kind of breeder cage did you use? The net type or the plastic one with an airline connected to an air pump?

I started feeding him live copepods through a syringe with a tube. I then started mixing in some newly hatched baby brine shrimp. Then moved to frozen bbs. And finally started adding in smelt eggs. By the end of 2 weeks, he was eating it all.

I am thinking about trying to introduce a small mandarin again into my 180. I am not 100 % sure if my sixline literally attack and kill a mandarin or keeping it harrased from hunting for copepods. If a mandarin eats frozen food as staple, it may have a better chance of survival in my tank with sixline wrasses getting to live food first. I can also observe an interaction between the big sixline wrasse and a new mandarin in a glass case. If a sixline is too aggressive, I can put a new mandarin in my 29G tank provided it eats frozen food.

shred5 · Oct 5, 2012

I have made a few post on this subject lately :

Grow your own copepods they are easy. Most pods are ok that are sold in this hobby. Just feed them phyto. Have two cultures going. I have raised many copepods while breeding fish they are easy. Most copods sold in the hobby are benthic and are what you want. Most of the planktonic copepods are for fish breeders. They will eat either but ones in the water column will not hold up in a reef, all the fish would eat them in no time. All it takes a few jars or small aquariums with a small air pump and a rigid airline tube. Set the air to just slightly bubble. Feed phyto and keep the water just slightly green.

They will also eat rotifers and brine shrimp. They are not as nutritious but are ok when copepod population is low temporarily.

Also find sometimes they take frozen cycloopeeze or articpods easier than any other food.

Dry foods are really hard to get them onto and I still feel they need some copepods.

They have never had a issue accepting brine shrimp. The problem is they are not very nutritious enough but can be used in a pinch where you are short on copepods. I also have had them eat rotifers which are about the same as brine shrimp nutrition wise.

The other thing is no other fish that hunt like royal Grammas, basslets, most wrasses etc because they will decimate the pods.

I want to add this: size of tank has very little to do with pod population in the tank. A dirty tank will have more pods and in most cases excess pod population is a indication of a dirty tank because they feed on detritus and algae and neither are wanted in your tank. You can add phyto to help to pod population in the tank though.

Tomoko Schum · Oct 5, 2012

I regularly add live phyto, live rotifers, and live copepods that I culture. I have yellow wrasse in addition to sixline wrasses. The large sixline wrasse is quite aggressive.