Mandarin Dragonet old age death?

[feelingfishy]

My Biota Mandarin Dragonet died today. He was 1,183 days old since I ordered him. He went through hell roughly 2 years ago when my old tank broke, when I had to keep him in a tiny 40 breeder for 6 months, but was still healthy. He would eat just about any kind of pellet or frozen food, so I’m pretty sure it was not starvation.

Just wanted to note this as maybe an average lifespan? I’m not 100% sure, but I know that all other fish are healthy and nothing in the tank has changed in several months.

 

[fishywishy]

Pretty normal for captivity, but they can live 15 years in the wild.

 

[Tamberav]

3 years? No, not old age at all, they live 10-15 years.

The lifespan in captivity is listed as shorter because they die of poor diet/starvation, disease, equipment failure, etc.

Sorry you lost your fish

 

[feelingfishy]

I ran through some scenarios of what may have caused his death.

1: Nutrition ( He would not search for pods as often as he did the first 2 years because he filled with a variety of pellet brands.
Side note : he was still chunky at death.

2: Large Emerald Crab grabbing him. I guess it’s a possibility but he was fairly large himself.

3: Swimming into Dmp-40 pump. At night I have the pumps on cross flow so there is a moment he could swim into the wave maker.

No signs of any kind of bacterial-parasitic-or viral infections in the tank .

 

[PharmrJohn]

And this meshes with my own research on their Lifespan. When considering adding a fish, I make a series of notations on the species in a Task App I have on my phone. I simply have 2 to 10 years depending on Husbandry.

 

[feelingfishy]

I want to place an order with Biota for a Yellow Watchman/Royal gramma. While I am at it I will pick up another Mandarin pair but they are sold out atm.

I did notice the Mandarin was flashing his reflection days before he died. Maybe he was lonely and died of a broken heart …..

Well thanks for the responses ya’ll.

 

[fishywishy]

I want to place an order with Biota for a Yellow Watchman/Royal gramma. While I am at it I will pick up another Mandarin pair but they are sold out atm.

I did notice the Mandarin was flashing his reflection days before he died. Maybe he was lonely and died of a broken heart …..

Well thanks for the responses ya’ll.

i would wait a while before you buy anything just to make sure it didn’t have some sort of disease.

 

[feelingfishy]

i would wait a while before you buy anything just to make sure it didn’t have some sort of disease.

I’m nearly positive it was not, but I will anyways not only because Biota is out of Mandarins, but also because I’m nearly broke X.x.

I’ve never seen any signs of disease. Maybe the reason for this is the 120w UV I’m running on top of QTing most everything ( except corals ).

 

[Paul B]

I lost this guy in an accident after 10 years so I know they can live at least as long as that.

 

[feelingfishy]

I’m sending in a triton test just to make sure there is nothing funky going on. The corals seem fine though (sps, lps, and soft).

There was one small thing that changed recently, I switched to a larger pellet of formula 2, which was too big for the mandarin to eat. I’m just throwing darts at the wall here….
Also, there is MANY Aiptasia along with MANY Bergia in the tank atm, maybe this has something to do with it…..

That’s the end of my rant.