Doing a Poll...on survival of Mandarins

[Lynn]

I would like to know how many people have had Mandarins. How many have had them for longer then 6 months. If so, what size aquarium they're in?
Just curious, Thanks Lynn

 

[monkeyboy]

http://ozreef.org/reference/mandarin_survey.html

 

[jaydse]

I got 2 mandrians & 1 scooter blennie in a 180 with 450+ lbs of live rock had them for 9 months now but I have noticed that their is hardly no pods at night swiming around like their use to be .// in my 90 where it,s just my lion fish theirs so many their out during the day.

 

[louey louey]

I've kept a manderin for about 8 months in my 75G reef. the reef has about 130 lbs of live rock and 60lbs of live sand. The reef was 4 months old when I got him. I added 60 ampipods to seed the system since the reef was fairly young for adding a manderin. I still find a dozen or pods in my sponge filters each time I clean them. I throw the pods back in the tank! This manderin also eats frozen formula one! I feed fornula one a couple times a week. Here's a link to a picture of the fish Manderin

 

[slojmn1]

I have had a male mandarin dragonete for 8 months. I added him to my 9 month old 120g reef with a 30g sump/refugium setup(about 10g of refugium space). He immediately became ematiated within the first 2 weks. I freaked

. I had planned my whole setup around this little guy. I waited till my pod podpulation was good and the tank had been stable for many months. I immediately ordered 2 amphipod breeding kits from IPSF and added these to the tank and refugium. I began target feeding him live brine. He ate a few here and there which was a good sign to me. Within a month or so he was definately filling out. I notice he prefers to eeat the tiny bugs that look like dots on the glass down by the sandbed. he ignores the larger, curly bodied amphipods. I have a bazillion of these little bugs everywhere. They are like a swarm in the corners of my overflows and in my refugium. They dot the glass and near the sandbed in the main tank. They are everywhere. Now he is fat as a cigar and very beautiful. I would love to get him a female friend but have been hesitant. Can my tank really support two mandarins? I am unsure. He is hard to get a picture of, very shy little fellow, but here is the one and only I have managed to get that is sort of decent, and I mean sort of.
Sorry it is so small, my larger version of this picture goes off the screen. But you get the idea.

[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: slojmn1 ]

[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: slojmn1 ]</p>

 

[esmithiii]

FWIW Read the survey in the link above carefully before attempting these beautiful but sometimes difficult to keep fish. There is so much good information in the survey.

I hope the survey could be repeated in time with a larger base of participants.

I have had one in my 180 for a couple of months. My pod population is still very high, and the fish looks very fat and happy.

E

 

[AnotherGoldenTeapot]

I've had one for a couple of years.

Originally I kept it in a 50 gal. After about a year I decided it was looking a little thin so I moved it to a 150 gal.

It now looks fine.

I'm not sure what the minimum size tank required to maintain a sufficent population of copepods is. Given I *almost* kept one healthy in a 50 gal I suspect a tank that's a little bit bigger than that would be fine. Maybe a 75? Perhaps had I had a refigium on that tank?

In any event you'll need to have an environment that has a never ending supply of copepods for it to feed on. That means having a large amount of live rock.

Mine will eat red mosquito lavae (of the frozen variety). Not that it ever gets any - there's no way I'm feeding something like that in my 150...

 

[VkeSu]

I had Mr.Pasley for 3 1/2 years in a 72gallon w/125# lr. Purchased him thin, he fattened out and looked for for the 3 years. At 3 1/2 yr. he started thinning out and months after that I had a tank crash (heat spike) that killed off most of my tank inhabitants. He never ate anything buy copepods.

 

[simonh]

reefs.org did a new survey last year:

http://www.reefs.org/survey/index.html

 

[dlambert]

I've had a male mandarin in my 90 for a couple years now. IMO, he's been pretty hardy. Seems pretty well-fed (fat li'l bugger) on tiny beasties he finds in > 100lb of rock.

 

[Anonymous]

I've got a fat female mandarin in a 55 with no visible pods. I've had it for 3 years. Must be something to eat in there.

 

[EmilyB]

Synchiropus pair.

Female - 17 months. Just lost her to sudden, unexplainable death, maybe a heart attack given how fat she was.

She ate everything, and was not the least bit shy about feeding in the water column. She spent her first year or so in a 72g. Moved to a 155g shortly after the male was added.

Male - 7 months. Not quite as fat as the female was. Also eats very well, maybe not quite as aggressively, (you may have seen the pic of my female trying to steal food from my feeding stick as I trying to lure out a coral crab)

I was very upset to loose Mouse, as the pair was spawning nightly. I am unsure as to whether I will replace her at this point.

 

[jsteinman]

I had mine for about two years. He's name is Austin Powers, cause he looks so psychedelic. I put him in about 3 months after setting up the tank. I was running a Ecosystem Sump for a long time that had plenty for him to eats. He still seems to be ok, now that I am using a useless built in sump skimmer...:-(

 

[fishfarmer]

I've had my female mandarin, Synchiropus picturatus, for about 19 months. 38 gal with 20 gal sump/refugium. She was very small when she first went in the tank. The tank was a new setup. She did well on 'pods for about the first year. I added a pair of peppermint shrimp thinking that she would eat the young when they spawn. I assumed this was happening during the first year, but I never saw her actually eating baby peppers. Once there was a shrimp hatch before lights out, the mandarin completely ignored the live shrimp swimming in front of her.

I made the mistake of adding a purple pseudochromis to the tank. The pseudochromis would chase the mandarin off the rocks so she couldn't feed. Pseudo was taken out.

I've noticed my 'pod population rebound a bit since removing the pseudo, but I don't believe it would be enough to sustain my mandarin fully.

My mandarin also eats frozen brine and frozen mysis, but ignors my homemade reef food. She is a slow feeder so target feeding in front of her is required especially with aggressive eaters like peppermint shrimp.

 

[geofloors]

I have a mandarin in a 75g for about 4 years. It eats anything I feed the tank; spirulina flake, pellets, frozen and live foods.

George

 

[Hammer]

Have a pair in a 80 gallon tank with 110 lbs LR, and 6" DSB. Also have 29 gallon refugium.
I owe a never decreasing pod population to pod piles.
Had these two in there for 4 months now. With a neon dottyback, midnight pygmy angel, and I still have tons of pods moving around everywhere at night.
These guys are fun, every time I stick my hand in the tank, they come swimming up. They know that anytime I stir something up, they will find a lot of pods hiding.
They will eat some frozen foods, but only pick at them because there is so much of their favorite food.

 

[Bobzarry]

I have 1 red scooter and 1 manderin in a 55 for 2 years now. both are fat, happy , and healthy. I have a very large pod population. I feed my tanks heavily on flake wich I believe is the reason my pod population is so high. I can actualy see the pieces of flake being draged about by pods....looks like swimming flakes..........lol

 

[MandarinFish]

What, if any, supplemental feeding have people used successfully (anecdotes here, I read the surveys too)?

Also, by purple pseudochromis did you mean an orchid dottyback Farmer?

What co-habitants do people have? Any with horses or gobies?

[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: MandarinFish ]</p>

 

[DBW]

Anyone that has kept Mandarins in the past or presently and haven't yet particpated in our survey, please do so.

Mandarin Survey

For everyone else. We are yet to sit down and analyse the data collected over the initial period. That data has been saved so that there would be no bias in the data presented by people because they could not see the results given by others. Now the thing we want now is,:

<ul type="square">[*]What exactly do people want to know from the large amount of data we have collected?[*]What correlations do you want us to look for?
[/list]

We have a heap of great data here, we just want to know what sort of information people are looking for, so that we can then go through it and put it into a form that is much easier to follow and hopefully get some great detail from.

Thank you.

 

[DBW]

And if you take the survey please answer every question. There are options there if you don't know the answer. Leaving the buttons in the default position is ultimately useless to us, no information can be gleamed from that at all. So please take the extra couple of seconds to actually select something for every question.