Mandarin Fish Care Thread

[reef]

have two. 2000L tank.

[Swampy]

have one in a 215 ltr display with 100 sump.Tipped a couple of cupsfulls of my sand into the sump and now i have insane pods.

[Guest Anonymous]

As a matter of interest, who out there is keeping a Mandarin and how big is your tank?

I have 1 x Green Mandarin in an RSM (130litres) - seems minimally adequate

This is very misleading. As your mandarin is a new addition to your tank. They usually starve to death in the 6-12mnth range.

WetWebMedia (Marine Biologists) recommend 100g (400L) per Mandarin with no Copepod competing fish. Marine Depot Live recommends 75G (350L) per fish with a refugium. The general vibe on Reef Central is 50G (200L), however they are able to buy copepods to stock there tanks with and we are not.

All of these recommendations are for mature tanks (6-12months+). So would be well above a Red Sea Max (130L).

I have 1 (and adding a 2nd). 500L Display with 100L Sump (Water Volume). 80+kgs Live rock in display and 10-20kg in Sump (just for pod breeding). I am also culturing copepods to dose into my tank and dose gut-loaded rotifers (haven't established if mandarin eats these as an adult but a young one will). I will be dosing gut-loaded live mysis and brine shrimp soon also.

[tHEcONCH]

This is very misleading. As your mandarin is a new addition to your tank. They usually starve to death in the 6-12mnth range.

WetWebMedia (Marine Biologists) recommend 100g (400L) per Mandarin with no Copepod competing fish. Marine Depot Live recommends 75G (350L) per fish with a refugium. The general vibe on Reef Central is 50G (200L), however they are able to buy copepods to stock there tanks with and we are not.

All of these recommendations are for mature tanks (6-12months+). So would be well above a Red Sea Max (130L).

I have 1 (and adding a 2nd). 500L Display with 100L Sump (Water Volume). 80+kgs Live rock in display and 10-20kg in Sump (just for pod breeding). I am also culturing copepods to dose into my tank and dose gut-loaded rotifers (haven't established if mandarin eats these as an adult but a young one will). I will be dosing gut-loaded live mysis and brine shrimp soon also.

It isn't intended to mislead - the reality is that my fish has gained weight and seems perfectly happy in the RSM, but I do feed the corals prepared food that the Mandarin very likely eats, and I have deliberately selected 'honeycomb' rock that has a big surface area and lots of places the fishes can't get to - there are still masses of pods and creepy crawlies in my tank. I suspect 1kg of porous 'honeycomb' live rock supports squillions more pods than 1KG of relatively solid rock. Tank volume and rock weight may or may not be valid indicators of what is minimally adequate - that is why I'm asking the question.

[Guest Anonymous]

It isn't intended to mislead - the reality is that my fish has gained weight and seems perfectly happy in the RSM,

Sure your fish will gain weight, this is not something you should use in the short-term as an indicator of if the fish has enough food to survive. Your tank has/had pods when the fish was introduced, and it ate them.. and gained weight.

but I do feed the corals prepared food that the Mandarin very likely eats

This is only relevant if you see your mandarin eating. There has been ALOT of debate on RC about this. The reality seems to be that you are doing nothing more than adding a small supplement to their diet. If you are feeding non-nutritious foods (like brine shrimp) that the mandarin is eating this may infact do more harm than good.

I have deliberately selected 'honeycomb' rock that has a big surface area and lots of places the fishes can't get to - there are still masses of pods and creepy crawlies in my tank.

Beneficial for sure. You need to ensure what you are seeing is infact copepods and not baby bristleworms or other 'creepy crawlies'.

Tank volume and rock weight may or may not be valid indicators of what is minimally adequate - that is why I'm asking the question.

They are and they aren't. In NZL we have it worse than most places, because we cannot mail order bottles of copepods. Therefore we have to stick to recommended guidelines more than most.

A mature tank is extremely important. Your copepod population must be able to sustain enough reproduction to not decline in size while feeding a mandarin.

If your tank cannot sustain such a high population initially your mandarin is going to get very fat because it's going to eat every copepod in your tank. This will take some time as they will still be reproducing but in a slow decline. Eventually your mandarin will starve to death, this usually happens in under 12mnths but will vary depending on your initially copepod population. Situation is exponentially worse if you have another fish that loves to snack on copepods (most fish will, even clowns).

IMO, 200L (50g) is the bare minimum I would put a mandarin into. The tank would be ATLEAST 12 months running and would've been seeded with live rock that already had copepods.

[Guest Anonymous]

I will add. Before you buy a Mandarin:

Read some posts on Reef Central. Especially posts by snorvich as he has been in the hobby for 16years now. He is very knowledgeable about Mandarins. Hopefully I will be fortunate enough to discuss breeding mandarins with him in the near future

you should read:

Reef Central Mandarin FAQ by Marc Levenson (Melev)

Wet Web Media Mandarin FAQ

There team is VERY GOOD. Especially Robert (Bob) Fenner who has been in the industry for many years, is a biologist with a couple of books under his belt!

Reef Corner Mandarin Info

A discussion on the care and feeding of Mandarins

- Make sure you read it all, as one of the contributors was banned from RC for trying to propagate bullsh*t bout the care of a Mandarin.

These links should be VERY helpful to someone contemplating a Mandarin. IMO my favourite fish, I built my 520L tank just around the idea of having a mated pair. I have spent well over $1000 on phytoplankton cultures and equipment to culture copepods and rotifers to feed them. Probably read every piece of literature on the internet regarding green mandarins

[reef]

Mandarins dont only eat copods. In a mature tank their is other small organisms which they eat. many mandrine will take frozen brine shrimp . mysis.

I dont do anything special to feed mine and he is over two years old,

My tank is over 2000L which helps as nothing else eats the small organism in my tank.

Mandarin will do well in a red sea max provided you dont have many fish. They should be able to fine the frozen foods as they will eat it off the substrate,

I have feed mandarins also bloodworms, whiteworms. etc.

Good fish to have with mandarin would be firefish. having clowns fish would be ok as they would not eat copods as they are too slow to get them in the rock.

Hatching brine shrimp and feed them in a redsea max would be easy as the brine shrimp will be easy to get.

I would feed brine shrimp just after the lights go out,

leave on a light somewhere in the main room, the brine shrimp will be attracted to the light and hang in the corner, should be a easy job for the mandarin to get them

[Guest Anonymous]

Mandarins dont only eat copods. In a mature tank their is other small organisms which they eat. many mandrine will take frozen brine shrimp . mysis.

Mandarins will feed almost exclusively on pods. These are amphipods and copepods. Maybe tigerpods too?. Some mandains do take prepared food, but this is by far the minority and prepared food is not enough to sustain a mandarin. It adds a small amount to their primary food source.

I dont do anything special to feed mine and he is over two years old, My tank is over 2000L which helps as nothing else eats the small organism in my tank.

Well, 2000L (500g) is a fair bit above the recommend minimum. Even with a competitor or 2 your tank would happily sustain a huge pod population for mandarin. Also you dose your tank with various supplements that would feed the pods.

Mandarin will do well in a red sea max provided you dont have many fish. They should be able to fine the frozen foods as they will eat it off the substrate, I have feed mandarins also bloodworms, whiteworms. etc.

IMO, a RSM is too small to sustain a sufficient copepod population for a mandarin to survive long term. IF.. IF your mandarin eats prepared food then they will pick at it from the substrate, but this cannot sustain a mandarin. Copepods are the most utilised and abundant source of protein in the ocean, something that is extremely important to having a healthy mandarin. Prepared foods do not offer the nutritional value that copepods can.

Good fish to have with mandarin would be firefish. having clowns fish would be ok as they would not eat copods as they are too slow to get them in the rock.

Very true. I kept my mandarin with a firefish for a time while it was in our 215 (55g) tank. Also had 2 clowns and a CBS who were all fine.

Hatching brine shrimp and feed them in a redsea max would be easy as the brine shrimp will be easy to get.

You must remember that brine shrimp are only nutritional for approx 4 hours after they hatch (while they still have their yok sac). After this period they become nothing more than a non-nutritious snack (similar to candy-floss). After 4 hours you'd have to gut-load them with Selcon or Phyto (or something similar).

The bigger issue with live Brine shrimp is that most marine fish will go absolutely crazy for it (esp clowns). So unless your willing to trap your mandarin and isolate the food all the other fish are going to get fed

To my knowledge, the frozen brine shrimp we get in NZL is not PE (Protein Enriched) as is available in the USA.

All n all, without sufficient population of copepods a mandarin will starve to death. They maybe fat but they will not be getting the required nutrition to survive.

Reef, you are lucky to have a 2000L system and I am indeed envious. I would have my own army of Mandarins then Different species of course otherwise they'd fight

Some food for thought. Watch your mandarin and count the frequency of your fish eating a pod. Then work out how many pods it would eat in a 16hr day at that rate. Realistically a mandarin can eat 4k-10k copepods a day. Thats is a LOT.

[jolliolli]

back to the 'who has a mandarin in 'what size tank question. Mines in a 400L, probably around 80kg liverock. The tank is lightly stocked with a couple of clowns, yellow tang, lawnmower blenny and couple of cleaners. I believe the mandarin is probably around 1 - 2 years old as it was in the tank whne i purchased the setup. I am debating getting a flame angel in the future, but am aware of that it will be competing with the mandarin for pods.. Ive just bought some phyto to dose the tank with which i should receive tomorrow, im going to see if this makes any visible increase in the pod population

[reef]

Some mandains do take prepared food, but this is by far the minority

No so, i have had over 100 mandarins and most would eat frozen foods and white worms blood worm,

[Guest Anonymous]

Ive just bought some phyto to dose the tank with which i should receive tomorrow, im going to see if this makes any visible increase in the pod population

I started a culture of copepods about 4 weeks ago in phyto to try and gauge their reproduction speed. While it is relatively quick (to us) it's still not that quick unfortunately. I don't think you will notice any difference in your pod population by dosing, but it will definitely help them.

[Guest Anonymous]

No so, i have had over 100 manarins and all ate frozen foods and white worms blood worm,

I would wonder if they would take to prepared foods in the absence of live food in QT? They do say a fair few can be trained onto prepared food. But if they get the chance to go back to live food its suppose to be almost impossible to get them back onto prepared food. This was the case with my mandarin unfortunately, she will not accept any form of prepared food. This would obviously come down to individual personalities of the fish thou.

A spotted mandarin will also take prepared foods more readily. Not too sure why.