As your corals grow, that will drop. Depending on what kind of corals you grow, that could be perfect or too high. Zoas love that level but sps and chalices and other things like it closer to 7-8. I shoot for around 8.5-9, even though my salt mixes at 12. unless I do a massive water change, I still need to add alk to keep it up.
So anyone with more knowledge, please correct me. You're going to run into a few issues I think. One, as someone has already mentioned Mandarins are extremely finicky eaters. Even ones that they say are "raised on frozen" or you've seen eat frozen might come to your tank and just say "Nope, done with that" and decide they don't want it anymore. Two, the reason they "require" such large tanks is that eat quite a bit and you're going to be feeding a lot, if you can't get it to eat prepared/frozen. Those high levels of nutrients you're going to end up with are going to make keeping your tank looking good a real pain in the butt. High nutrients reeks all sorts of havoc. The alternative to frozen/prepared is the other reason people use large tanks for them, they feed on small sea bugs basically that usually live on rockwork, in refugiums etc. A small tank simply doesn't have the space to keep a healthy population alive to feed a mandarin.
what do you currently have in your tank?
