My new little fishy friend (1 Viewer)

[dmccoy]

He/She decided to strike a pose for me. Notice the big smile....

 

[cliner]

Nice!

 

[dougiefresh]

Those are pretty fish.

 

[dmccoy]

I hope i have enough food (pod's) in the tank for it to eat!

 

[Llama]

If the mandy's eating then you should be fine. We started our systems at nearly the same time, and I've had mine (george) for 4 almost 5 months now. Fat and happy.

 

[paraletho]

We now have that Mandarin in our 125 and she is doing well. We had a Spotted in our 58 for over a year but it went downhill fast when we changed out our sandbed (crushed coral) which was a Bryopsis nightmare. We tried supplementing pods to no avail. Beautiful fish good luck.

 

[RR-MAN]

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin. See if you can get it to feed on some sort of frozen food.

 

[dmccoy]

My New Littly Fishy Friend

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin. See if you can get it to feed on some sort of frozen food.

So one year isnt established? I disagree.

I am feeding fronzen food though.

 

[RR-MAN]

Re: My New Littly Fishy Friend

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin. See if you can get it to feed on some sort of frozen food.

So one year isnt established? I disagree.

Nope. Year one is just the beginning. You just set up the tank...all new sand with few pieces of LR. Good luck neighbor.

 

[dmccoy]

Re: My New Littly Fishy Friend

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin. See if you can get it to feed on some sort of frozen food.

So one year isnt established? I disagree.

Nope. Year one is just the beginning. You just set up the tank...all new sand with few pieces of LR. Good luck neighbor.

Ahhh, come on.... I have 100#'s of liverock that has been going for several years. I have had it for 1 year and I bought all of that from other members. Sand is new though....

When the lights went off last night he got brave and decided to venture out. He was swimming around all over the tank. As soon as the lights come on he has his favorite spot and doesnt come out much... Hopefully it will get over the shyness in time....

 

[RR-MAN]

By the way, awesome picture...

Good luck with it friend.

 

[Llama]

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin.

My mandarin is living proof that this isn't true.

However the new sand bed in dmccoy's tank does worry me a bit. You may want to look into building a little mandarin feeding station out of rock rubble. I will add though that my 4-5" bullet goby usually consumes most of the life in my sand, leaving the pods in the rock work as the food supply for George.

dmccoy,
Have you seen the new girl eating any food that you're feeding?

 

[dmccoy]

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin.

dmccoy,
Have you seen the new girl eating any food that you're feeding?

she was nipping at the rocks last night which could be a good start.

 

[jamesw]

Keeping a mandarin is a touchy subject as they are one of the most difficult fish to keep nourished. I think we've established that

I think just because it's nipping at the rocks doesn't mean it will live. I have seen mandarins in FO tanks at PETCO nipping at the rocks :-(

With that said, it will get SOMETHING to eat in your tank, but it's a good idea to supplement that if you can. Either a feeding station like I've read about on the internet (clear bottle w/ food pellets or brine inside) or a rubble area is a great idea.

Cheers
James

 

[RR-MAN]

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin.

My mandarin is living proof that this isn't true.

Update me in 3-6 months if the mandarin is still alive. I did not start reefing last year. Like I said, if it eats some sort of frozen food it will survive, otherwise, the poor animal is doomed.

All of you guys with mandarins, GOOD LUCK.........

 

[dmccoy]

Your tank is not established enough to keep a mandarin.

My mandarin is living proof that this isn't true.

Update me in 3-6 months if the mandarin is still alive. I did not start reefing last year. Like I said, if it eats some sort of frozen food it will survive, otherwise, the poor animal is doomed.

All of you guys with mandarins, GOOD LUCK.........

John, i just got home and i walked over to my tank. My mandarin (named Dwaylee for Dwayne and Carlee) said....."hey dad, tell John everything will be alright. throw me some shrimp ceviche and lime and life will be good".

Thanks for the advice buddy! I will watch him closely and make sure i supplement pods and blood worms.

You should stop by this afternoon....

 

[RR-MAN]

I'll give you a call.

 

[Llama]

Update me in 3-6 months if the mandarin is still alive. I did not start reefing last year. Like I said, if it eats some sort of frozen food it will survive, otherwise, the poor animal is doomed.

All of you guys with mandarins, GOOD LUCK.........

Interesting tidbit to go along with this. I made sure that the guy at the LFS showed me that the mandarin would eat non-living food before I purchased. Homie dropped in some dainichi pellets and she gobbled them right up. So I picked up some of those pellets as well while i was there and started feeding those. I have yet to see George eat even a single pellet since in my tank, yet she keeps getting fatter and fatter.

In no way do I consider myself an expert. Nor have I ever claimed to be.. in any field for that matter. I did start reefing last year. However, I do my research and try to make informed decisions with as few mistakes as possible. Like I said she's been in the tank for just about 5 months and is doing great, but I did set a reminder for June 1st to report back to you guys.

 

[paraletho]

Is your tank an SPS ultra low nutrient or just an average mixed reef. I've noticed that pods seem to do better with a little nutrient in the mix. The best pod production we had was in our algae outbreak period. If I remember right these fish are found in areas of higher algae production not in the pristine reef crest.

 

[jamesw]

The place I went in Anilao to photograph spawning mandarins wasn't a lagoon but it wasn't a reef crest either. It was sort of a reef slope with a "net" of bottlebrush acropora growing everywhere.

Yes, of course they need calm water as they can't catch pods in high flow. So a high-flow reeftank is out unless you have different "zones" in your tank.

Cheers
James