Keeping my Mandarin Alive!!!

BaconLuver · Jan 22, 2008

I also currently have a spotted/target/green mandarin for about 9 months in 24g 'pod. did nothing special other than trying to feed him different foods..in the end, he liked , in his favorite order, live brine, frozen brine, frozen mysis/PE mysis and my homemade fish food. never did he touch any dry food or cylopeeze. I did have to turn off the pumps and feed him directly with a modified syringe that had a hardline air tubing connected via flexible air tubing. HTH

Greeneyz64 · Jan 22, 2008

BaconLuver said:
I also currently have a spotted/target/green mandarin for about 9 months in 24g 'pod. did nothing special other than trying to feed him different foods..in the end, he liked , in his favorite order, live brine, frozen brine, frozen mysis/PE mysis and my homemade fish food. never did he touch any dry food or cylopeeze. I did have to turn off the pumps and feed him directly with a modified syringe that had a hardline air tubing connected via flexible air tubing. HTH

Wow that's great news!! Funny you should mention turning off the pumps... I was wondering.. while I'm trying to increase my POD population with live rock etc.. Do I turn off the Protein Skimmer?? Or will it not affect the Pods wellfare??

Azurel · Jan 22, 2008

I don't think it will effect you pods as they eat detritus and algae, leftovers....The only thing that will do really is make your water high in nutrients which can help grow algae but also pita algae that you don't want growing.......JMHO.

Reef Goddess · Jan 23, 2008

I have mine in a 40 long that was up for nearly 6 months with no fish, just chaeto and corals. The guy is so fat now and spends all his days hunting. I never bother to put other food in because the pods breed faster than his ability to eat them all.

I used to have one for at least 2 years in a mixed 58 reef tank. It helps to have a really established dsb or fuge. I had wrasses in that tank as well but kept them well fed and I think that mandarin ate cyclopeez.

They are easy to keep in a tank by themselves thats been established for a long time otherwise I wouldn't recommend it.

Hypertek99 · Jan 23, 2008

Went to UA today and they had a Red Mandarin Goby. I saw it and couldn't pass up. You don't see much red ones. It's so pretty. I'll post pics up later tonight it's still in the bag.

Hypertek99 · Jan 23, 2008

Here's my mandarin goby it's been in my tank for 8 months now. Going to catch and take her out tonight and put it in my other tank as i bought a Red Mandarin Goby today.

Green Mandarin when i first got it

Red Mandarin

Target Mandarin (passed away) for those of you who think you can keep 2 mandarins in one tank don't do it. My green has gotten fat since i added my refugium then i saw this target mandarin at my lfs and it was starving so i bought it and put it in my tank with the green mandarin well they pretty much competed over the pods and finally the target mandarin died.

Greeneyz64 · Jan 23, 2008

Hypertek99 said:
Here's my mandarin goby it's been in my tank for 8 months now. Going to catch and take her out tonight and put it in my other tank as i bought a Red Mandarin Goby today.

Green Mandarin when i first got it

Red Mandarin

Target Mandarin (passed away) for those of you who think you can keep 2 mandarins in one tank don't do it. My green has gotten fat since i added my refugium then i saw this target mandarin at my lfs and it was starving so i bought it and put it in my tank with the green mandarin well they pretty much competed over the pods and finally the target mandarin died.

Wow! Super Pics! I don't think I've ever seen PODS swimming around in my tank although I've been told after 3.5years the rocks in my tank are "LIVE" I've just added some live rock...so.. how long do you think it will be before I see these PODS??

Hypertek99 · Jan 23, 2008

If you haven't noticed pods for 3.5 years you probably won't notice them now. They are real tiny. You have to really look on your glass. Copepods are real tiny but if you look carefully you will see them.