I tried adding a female to my tank but the male cased her around within seconds and kept trying to hit it. Talk about abusive relationships, I removed her and put her in my other tank. I've never seen a mandarin move around so fast before.Glad you can tell . Lol
If I were to get a female , will they breed ?
I also have the other type mandarin .
I used to have a spotted (S.picturatus) male and a pair of the regular striped mandarins (S.splendidus) a few years ago. I waned them all to eat live tubifex worms which I was treating with a drop of selcon before feeding. The striped mandarins were periodically doing the spawning dance in the evenings, before lights off. It was a beautiful sight: starting from the tank bottom, the male and female touched with their bellies and then were spiralling up to the top. Then they would separate, swim to the bottom and start over again. I have never seen the eggs being scattered, though. I think they are supposed to release the eggs when they reach the top, just before separating.
In my experience they usually only eat the small ones and the eggs. I got a yellow corris wrasse to eat the larger one's and both of them together ate them all within 2 weeks. Pretty happy with the results
I bought a Mel. Wrasse , 2 six line wrasse which were all supposed to eat them .
I’ve tried finding a yellow corris wrasse
I have recently received 2 from my brother. I’ve tried everything to feed them and one has died. Did a lot of reading and getting copepods today. Pray this keeps the other one alive. What’s the name of the pellets ? I could kill my brother for giving me something without any history!!! The 1 fish dying devastated me! Learn by your mistakes
I use the TDO X-Small pellets, there is another food that's basically powder and that works okay as well
TDO Chroma Boost pellets in extra small or B2 size. We got ours through BRS site
Have u ever heard of them being mean? One of mine died and I got another one so the one I do have would have a friend. Well I put the little one in and my other one attacked it!( Actually body slammed it on the rocks) I was able to get it out and give to someone that night and it’s doing great I heard they were gentle and not aggressive but that’s not the case with mine!
I see them picking at rocks but worried I don't have enough pods as I have a smaller tank. Keeping my finger crossed they live. 
If they are Biota they should already know to eat pellets. That's part of the reason why they are so dam expensive. Are you 100% sure they are biota? Did you get them online or at a store?I have 2 biota mandarines. I have had them for a few days and they seem happy. I've been trying to feed them anything and everything. This morning I put in some mysis and one of them ate it!! But then spit it out
Question. How long doe it take before they start to deteriorate??
They are super docile with other fish but man can they be super aggressive with other mandarins. I got a second one (female) to pair up with mine and he cornered her and attacked her less than 5 minutes of me adding it. I had to remove it quickly cause mine was super aggressive
I regularly dose rotifers as well so he always has those as well. I used to see thousands of pods a night all over here glass and rocks but after adding him they all hide now
Bought from lfs. They are very reputable. They actually had wild mandarins in the shop which where way bigger and half the price!! The biota ones are tiny, the female is less than 1' my male is about 1.5'. I trust my lfs so we will see. He has a great reputation and I don't think he would risk it over $50. I think if you are buying captive bred you should expect them to be tiny. Which is always a worry since I feel the smaller they are the less hardy they are.
Yes captive bred ones are very small. The shop I help at gets them and they are always super tiny maybe half an inch or a bit bigger. I would try to feed it super small pellets and hopefully takes off. Or if you have access to rotifers that would also be a good food source
Thanks.
