Mandarin Gobies extremely malnourished

[PeterEde]

Here's a video of my little girl feeding from a pipette

 

[Paul B]

If I were you, and I'm not, I would buy some brine shrimp eggs today. They will hatch in about 36 hours and while you are waiting for that to happen build one of these. It will take you maybe an hour.

The hardest part may be finding the tube going to the surface but Home Depot sells black PVC tubes for connecting up bathroom sinks. The bottom part is a tape container that electrical tape comes in.

Put the newborn shrimp in the top of the tube that you put a little funnel on and your mandarins will be fine. May even spawn in a few weeks but they may not live very long in the condition they are in mow.

 

[Tired]

If you get San Francisco brand brine shrimp, they might hatch in more like 18 hours. Granted, I have my hatchery outside in the Texas heat, so that might be contributing, but mine definitely don't take 36 hours to at least mostly hatch.

 

[rmorris_14]

I hope you can get them to turn around. I'm sure you will do your best. Not be a Debbie downer, just preparing you for the case where they might not be able to be saved. I have seen Jay post multiple times, that once fish enter a state where the starvation effects their liver, there is little chance of coming back from it. Obviously, I'm not suggestion you should not try. But it is possible that they are past the point of being able to be helped. Hopefully thats not the case.

 

[Miami Reef]

Last night I tube fed the female ROE and I was very successful. I know people say I shouldn’t, but at this point tiny pods will not get them to actually have a caloric surplus.

The female is hunting. The male is the smaller one. He kept his mouth shut so tube feeding did not work for him…yet. I just need these guys to hang on a little while longer for me. I will do the absolute best I can and will keep this thread up to date.

 

[Tamberav]

Good luck. Hope they pull though. Once they are healthy, watch for aggression because large females sometimes reject smaller males and attack them. They want to breed with hunks

 

[Miami Reef]

Good luck. Hope they pull though. Once they are healthy, watch for aggression because large females sometimes reject smaller males and attack them. They want to breed with hunks

Thanks for this.

My LFS had a small female green spotted mandarin. I initially wanted the male red mandarin to pair with the green spotted, but the owner said they will kill each other. Just out of curiosity, is this true?

Pic for reference.

 

[Tired]

I know some people mix the species with minimal fighting, so I don't think they'll slaughter each other on sight if there's enough space, but I don't know if they'll pair up.

 

[Tamberav]

Thanks for this.

My LFS had a small female green spotted mandarin. I initially wanted the male red mandarin to pair with the green spotted, but the owner said they will kill each other. Just out of curiosity, is this true?

Pic for reference.

they will not pair and sometimes they fight. Although the ones that I have experience with fighting were same sex mostly.

A Mandy and scooter always seems to get along fine tho.

There is a good chance your current two will not pair due to size differences unless the male can grow bigger then her. You can watch videos of them spawning in the wild and it is a large male and much smaller female.

Not going to say it’s impossible but it’s not how nature does it

 

[Crustaceon]

A little trick you can try to boost their caloric intake is to pipet some small-sized mysis in at the same time as the brine shrimp/pods. Mandarins get into "hunting mode' when the start eating live prey and will sometimes take a piece of frozen food from the mix while they're amped up. Whenever I get the Hikari cubes, the mysis shrimp aren't much larger than full-sized brine, so I'd start there. Also, I've had good luck feeding live amphipods to my dragonets FWIW. We seem to always have plenty of those in out systems anyways.

 

[SPS2020]

The female is hunting. The male is the smaller one. He kept his mouth shut ...

This made me laugh so hard!

In all seriousness, hoping they pull through. Good for you to help them the way you are!

 

[Crustaceon]

Thanks for this.

My LFS had a small female green spotted mandarin. I initially wanted the male red mandarin to pair with the green spotted, but the owner said they will kill each other. Just out of curiosity, is this true?

Pic for reference.

I can't confirm it because trying could potentially resort in the worst fish fight a reefer will ever see in the hobby. They are shockingly mean creatures when they don't want another mandarin in their territory. I saw it happen once in a friend's tank years ago and we probably had less than five minutes to get the other fish out of the system before the resident dragonet killed it. This is why I always place a new dragonet in a "critter carrier" and set it on the bottom for a few days. If I see the established dragonet bouncing off of the carrier, the new dragonet goes to a new home.

 

[Miami Reef]

they will not pair and sometimes they fight. Although the ones that I have experience with fighting were same sex mostly.

A Mandy and scooter always seems to get along fine tho.

There is a good chance your current two will not pair due to size differences unless the male can grow bigger then her. You can watch videos of them spawning in the wild and it is a large male and much smaller female.

Not going to say it’s impossible but it’s not how nature does it

I agree with you. I actually saw a post by @OrionN saying that his large female was really beating up the small male. He said he’d never try it again.

Should I give one/both back to the LFS? I paid full price for them both and I kind of feel kind of cheated, especially if Jay Hemdal said severely skinny fish have a death sentence?

I definitely will give one away. There’s no point in trying to save both if one will get killed regardless from incompatibility (small male; large female). The LFS has excellent customer service and they know me very well.

 

[Miami Reef]

I dunno. I kind of want to play my luck and try to save them both.

 

[Tired]

Give it a try! They won't insta-murder each other. If they start fighting, separate them, and you'll at least be trying to rehome a healthy mandarin instead of a starving one.

 

[Tamberav]

I agree with you. I actually saw a post by @OrionN saying that his large female was really beating up the small male. He said he’d never try it again.

Should I give one/both back to the LFS? I paid full price for them both and I kind of feel kind of cheated, especially if Jay Hemdal said severely skinny fish have a death sentence?

I definitely will give one away. There’s no point in trying to save both if one will get killed regardless from incompatibility (small male; large female). The LFS has excellent customer service and they know me very well.

Up to you.

Yes, they may both be too far gone. Maybe not.

How long did the LFS have them for? They some times show up skinny already but if they sat around for awhile... they can starve at the LFS too if they don't put them in a mature system.

The captive ones are generally a better bet.. they are tiny but easy to grow out and grow at a pretty good pace...and they seem to show up in good condition at my LFS. If these do not make it... go for a biota pair.

 

[Miami Reef]

Update: I returned the mandarins back to the LFS and I picked up a very healthy green spotted mandarin female. While I do feel bad for the mandarins returned, the chances of them recovering didn’t seem likely.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Okay…I made a small “mistake” today.

I got attached and purchased a male and a female red mandarin goby. They didn’t look extremely skinny in the shop, but upon taking them home, they look pretty bad. They are very pinched and look so malnourished.

Luckily, I purchased 2 bottles of tigger pods and put the little guys in a small QT and fed a lot of the pods. Luckily, they are eating, but not as much to actually put weight to save themselves.

@Paul B

Little info: I culture live whiteworms and tried offering them but I don’t believe they ate any. I’m kind of tempted to “force feed” them. I have experience doing so and I’d say I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t think I’ve tried doing it on a mandarin.

Do I just hope and pray they’ll eat on their own?

You wrote: "They didn’t look extremely skinny in the shop, but upon taking them home, they look pretty bad."

While that could be a result of just missing that in the shop, there is another possibility that could account for this: if the store was holding them in low salinity, and you acclimated them (even slowly) up to full salinity, that can cause small fish to dehydrate very rapidly. One symptom of that is becoming "skinny" right before your eyes.....

Jay

 

[Miami Reef]

You wrote: "They didn’t look extremely skinny in the shop, but upon taking them home, they look pretty bad."

While that could be a result of just missing that in the shop, there is another possibility that could account for this: if the store was holding them in low salinity, and you acclimated them (even slowly) up to full salinity, that can cause small fish to dehydrate very rapidly. One symptom of that is becoming "skinny" right before your eyes.....

Jay

I think I saw they had a lateral line in the shop, but I didn’t expect their under abdomen to be that sunked in. I think it was mostly my fault for not really paying attention.

 

[PeterEde]

If an LFS is not going to make the effort to hand feed difficult fish then they should not stock them. IMO.
My lfs will show you a fish is eating before bagging it.