Mandarin dragonets

[krish]

Hi guys

Please advise me when to add Mandarin dragonets in the tanks
my tank is 1 month old and the size is 1.2 meter

 

[PeterEde]

My tank is just 6.5 months old. I put one in at 5 months that was in my LFS taking food for a while.

I have dosed pods and phyto but it takes frozen brine from a pipette if he can get past the other greedy guts Dusky Rabbit, Wrasse and Flamehawk

 

[LovinlifeinGuam]

You should wait a little while before adding any fish that eats only copepods...you want to have a stable population which would usually take several months for the tank to mature

 

[i cant think]

I’d recommend waiting until Atleast a year if not 1.5 years, as said above these need pods, even if they eat frozen they aren’t like wrasses which can wait to be fed. Mandarins and any dragonet needs to feed all the time. Most that eat frozen will go back to eating strictly pods.
Tank size matters to, the more rocks you can have the more success you’re likely to have.

 

[NatsRams]

I have a single dragonette in my tank, which is a little bigger than yours. It seems happy because it has been in there for a couple of months and looks healthy.

Ideally, you will need a healthy copepod (pods) population. You can either feed pods regularly or work to establish a reproducing population. The latter requires a mature tank and most likely regularly dosing live phytoplankton.

I’ve read that some people are successfully feeding them other foods. If want to go that route, I’d make sure that they are feeding on that food in the store before purchasing it.

Another thing. You said dragonettes, as in more than one. Be careful because they don’t get along well with other dragonettes with exception, I’m assuming, of the opposite gender.

 

[Alexraptor]

Actually from, I can say from personal experience, that even with a male-female pair, things cant turn very ugly. Lost a female that way. Male beat her within an inch of her life, and she got eggbound after that. :(

 

[Tchung23]

Agreed. I bought a male and female captive bred pair and when they were very young were inseparable. As they got bigger the male killed the female. So sad.

 

[NeedAReef]

I have a pair they are happy tank is 7 months I put pods every few weeks since the get go. I have a fuge full of them. Feed them phyto and there is a bunch of macro in there for them to hide. Fun to look at them when the light is on.

 

[john92708]

You could add them once your tank finished cycle. make sure you get the captive bred one that's eating pellets. The wild one will starve to death unless you have tons and tons of pods. I have a pair from Biota in my 14 AIO nano reef for 6 months now. They come super tiny but double in size now. I put my pair in a breeder box separated for the first few weeks so I could make sure each one are eating and to avoid aggression. if you get a pair make sure you keep an eye on them. My pair take a few try before they get alone. I also got a few order of Ecopod from Algaebarn to seed the tank. it help if you have lots of live rock and/or a refugium. My pair eat mostly TDO B2 pellets and the occasional frozen when I'm not lazy :). oh they eat slowly so don't get other aggressive fish or one that outcompete them for food like a piggy clownfish. My pair was the only fish in this tank until recently when I added a yasha goby. Plan to get a candy pistol shrimp buddy for the goby later. good luck and happy reefing.