Biota Mandarin Dragonets

[ReefHunter006]

Hi all,

I have a BIOTA pair on its way for next week. I wanted to get some opinions.

1. What’s the general consensus on disease when shipping direct? I buy all my fish QTd because I don’t have the space for fish and coral qt. Nothing goes into my tank without being QTd. Are these likely an infection risk?

2. I know these will be very small. I have 4 mp40s on the tank at 80%. How likely are these guys to go climbing up a wall and get sucked in? My old dragonets never had an issue with them but they were all 1-2inches.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

 

[Slocke]

Hi all,

I have a BIOTA pair on its way for next week. I wanted to get some opinions.

1. What’s the general consensus on disease when shipping direct? I buy all my fish QTd because I don’t have the space for fish and coral qt. Nothing goes into my tank without being QTd. Are these likely an infection risk?

2. I know these will be very small. I have 4 mp40s on the tank at 80%. How likely are these guys to go climbing up a wall and get sucked in? My old dragonets never had an issue with them but they were all 1-2inches.
View attachment 3049013
Thanks for taking the time to respond!

I have had a pair of biota mandarins for about a year now and they're great!

1. I have never heard of biota fish coming in with disease. The things we treat for in QT are generally parasites and captive bred fish that have not been exposed to wild fish (with parasites) should not have any. Also they're thick mucous cote protects mandarins from parasites better then most fish.
2. All I can say is I never had that problem however they are more intelligent then an anemone and I'd think they shouldn't go wandering into a powerhead. They do grow pretty fast.

 

[Biota_Marine]

Hi all,

I have a BIOTA pair on its way for next week. I wanted to get some opinions.

1. What’s the general consensus on disease when shipping direct? I buy all my fish QTd because I don’t have the space for fish and coral qt. Nothing goes into my tank without being QTd. Are these likely an infection risk?

2. I know these will be very small. I have 4 mp40s on the tank at 80%. How likely are these guys to go climbing up a wall and get sucked in? My old dragonets never had an issue with them but they were all 1-2inches.
View attachment 3049013
Thanks for taking the time to respond!

We try to keep our distribution facility as biosecure as possible but on top of that mandarins are a bit special because of their thick mucus coating and specialized scales so they often don't deal with many diseases.

The best bet is to get them down to the rockwork, even in higher flow aquariums as long as they can go in and out of caves and hang around by the sandbed they should be fine. We recommend turning them off temporarily when addint to new aquariums.

 

[exnisstech]

I recently saw a pair at the lfs and man they were tiny. So tiny I would probably never see them again if added to a tank like the one you show in the OP. I don't know that I have ever seen a fish for sale as small as these two were. Even the store owner said he didn't know how they sexed them they were that small. He said he would only sell them as a pair because he could not sex them himself. Not being negative just saying that putting them in a tank that size will be challenging. Good luck.

 

[Biota_Marine]

I recently saw a pair at the lfs and man they were tiny. So tiny I would probably never see them again if added to a tank like the one you show in the OP. I don't know that I have ever seen a fish for sale as small as these two were. Even the store owner said he didn't know how they sexed them they were that small. He said he would only sell them as a pair because he could not sex them himself. Not being negative just saying that putting them in a tank that size will be challenging. Good luck.

I've actually had a ton of clients do something like that where they'll add them to larger tanks and they "disappear" for a few weeks or even months and one day come out around 3-4x the size. They're super hardy guys even at the small size.

Other clients put them in an acclimation box until they are deemed large enough but whichever way you reef should work.