Tank Aggression?

[Marie7]

Hi Guys:
I'm so confused and I need to find out who the culprit is as I'm very upset. I bought 2 mandarins, one brown with color circles and a beautiful blue one that it was absolutely gorgeous, they was doing great until few days ago that I found my blue mandarin with out eyes and dead at the bottom of the tank, it was heartbreaking for me as I love those guys very much specially the blue one.
I thought that maybe he dies and the fishes took over to eat the mandarin after dead and I went and bought another one, it last on my nano tank approximately a week and a half and this one was even bigger and more beautiful than the first one.
Today I went to feed them and I found the blue mandarin again dead with one eye missing a hole in the side and some of the skin off typical of aggression with some of his tail chopped.
I don't have a clue which one could be but he mainly maintain himself hiding behind the rocks while the brown mandarin swim around with no problem, what can be happening my livestock are: one black clown fish, 2 orange small ocellaris clownfish. one puffer, one pajama cardinal and one urchin that hangs a lot on the walls, Can someone help me to pin point whos the one at fault, I ask about the puffer to my friend before buy the mandarins but he said that the puffer won't do anything , not sure about it but not sure either about the black clownfish. Thanks all

 

[Flowering Reef LLC]

Hi, what size aquariums is this?? if it is aggression i would most likely point the blame at the other mandarin or the size of the aquarium causing some fish to get territorial...

 

[Marie7]

10 gallons

 

[Marie7]

Hi, what size aquariums is this?? if it is aggression i would most likely point the blame at the other mandarin or the size of the aquarium causing some fish to get territorial...

But the other mandarin hang around with the blue one with no problem he seen to be very gentle and tame

 

[Marie7]

But the other mandarin hang around with the blue one with no problem he seen to be very gentle and tame

Also is the blue mandarin in both occasions that went dead brown stilstill fine, thats what confused me

 

[ngoodermuth]

Can you post a picture of the brown one? I just want to make sure I’m clear on the species.

Also, not to be discouraging but are you aware of the specialized feeding requirements of dragonets? They don’t usually do well in smaller tanks due to lack of live rock to harbor pods for them to hunt.

 

[chowwil]

How old is your tank and how much live rock do you have. I'm thinking it might of starved cause the tank is too small and not enough food for the both of them. I have 2 ruby red dragonets (male and female) in a 20g with lots of live rock, but also introduce live pods into the tank once in awhile

 

[Captain Quint]

I'm truly sorry. +1 on the 10g size.

 

[4FordFamily]

A ten gallon wouldn’t be a large enough home for a mandarin, even if it was established for years as it’ll decimate the pod population quickly.

What kind of puffer? Pics would be useful if you’re unsure, but if it’s aggression that’s the most likely culprit.

Photos of the clowns? They’d be suspect number two.

Eating the eyes of the deceased is pretty common in fish. Often by the time we purchase mandarin gobies they’ve been without food so long at the LFS and in the distribution system that they very quickly starve in home aquaria.

Sorry for the losses.

 

[Marie7]

I do not have much of live rock on it just like a medium size and 2 small rocks. I feed frozen cube plankon , krill, miasis, and other frozen cubes so they have a variety of food to cover all specially because of the mandarins and puffer, i also introduce some live pods to the cube.
Tank has been stablish for 2+ years. Puffer is just a regular yellow puffer.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Mandarins eat pretty much exclusively pods, and literally hundreds a day. In a 10g tank, I’d think a single mandarin would wipe them out in less than 3 months....

Add a second one, and it doesn’t bode well for either of them. I really wish LFS would label them for 100+ gallons because in my experience they need at least that much, with ample live rock and an established refugium.

 

[Marie7]

Now do u guys think that if i put them on my 92 gallon tank will survive there? I have on the big one 2 maroons clowns, yellow tang, fox face, blue emperor,coral beauty, 2 damsels, i have another tang as you can see on the pictures this is the new tank. The photos here are of my 10 gallon one