Baby Mandarin has ammonia burn!!!! PLEASE HELP!!

Anak’s Reef · Sep 7, 2020

Dark_Knightt said:
Mandarins dont need big tanks, they are very small fish. Its the pods that one needs to worry about. If you can provide a good amount of pods for the mando you should be good to put one in a 20g or so, I wouldnt go lower.

Yup, I agree. My tank is full anyway so. No more fish and just more corals. If my mandarin gets too big, illl rehome it, but she’s fine right now. So I don’t worry too much.

Anak’s Reef · Sep 7, 2020

Dark_Knightt said:
The mando wont outgrow your tank XDD The biggest ive seen these guys get is like 3 inches, but the one I saw was about the size of a full grown clownfish (female)

Yeah. Thanks!

Jib · Sep 7, 2020

Mandarinfish20 said:
I think I will let her stay in the tank with her tankmate fish protecting her and her pod population.

What is she being protected from?

Karen00 · Sep 7, 2020

Dark_Knightt said:
Mandarins dont need big tanks, they are very small fish. Its the pods that one needs to worry about. If you can provide a good amount of pods for the mando you should be good to put one in a 20g or so, I wouldnt go lower.

That's good to know. Thanks. I might some day be able to keep one if I can keep the pods going. I hope the OP's recovers. I will be following this to see what the outcome is.

snowhite · Sep 7, 2020

IMHO, unless you're dosing copepods a couple times a week "while" running a refugium to establish a growing colony of them, you're most likely not going to have good luck with Mandarin's in that young tank.
Copepods are prone to showing up in newer tanks convincing people they're good, then disappearing quickly.

Dark_Knightt · Sep 7, 2020

Karen00 said:
That's good to know. Thanks. I might some day be able to keep one if I can keep the pods going. I hope the OP's recovers. I will be following this to see what the outcome is.

Ive got a 20g and im gonna try and get one, or a ruby red dragonet. Smaller, hardier, but still same species and looks about the same

najer · Sep 7, 2020

Yes you can do this in a 20, my rescue spotted is in a 13.5 but very established, you need your pods self sustaining feeding live phyto and top them up, it is not designed to process 3 square meals a day, you can keep a mandarin alive if you can get it to eat your food, it still wants to eat and process pods every waking minute!

40g Nano · Sep 7, 2020

How many pods do you dose per day for the fish

Reefing_addiction · Sep 7, 2020

I have a mandarin. I love her! I also only have a small 16g aio biocube. I added a fuge. I dose pods every couple of weeks. I also try and get some live brine shrimp and add them in. I’m trying still to establish a good population of pods. But mainly because I’m bad about feeding the pods enough phytoplankton.

I am actually going to start cultivating my own pods soon so I can stop purchasing them.
Here is a link to basic care

Mandarin Goby Fish Care | Using Copepods to Feed Mandarin Dragonet

Learn how to keep your Mandarin happy and healthy using live foods.

www.algaebarn.com

Dark_Knightt · Sep 7, 2020

najer said:
Yes you can do this in a 20, my rescue spotted is in a 13.5 but very established, you need your pods self sustaining feeding live phyto and top them up, it is not designed to process 3 square meals a day, you can keep a mandarin alive if you can get it to eat your food, it still wants to eat and process pods every waking minute!

Im gonna do it in a 20 as well. Cultivating pods and phyto, but I have a friend at my LFS and he said he would train one onto prepared foods for me. SO i will ask him to ween one onto prepared foods and meanwhile i will be growing pod population in DT for about 4 months or so.

Reefing_addiction · Sep 7, 2020

Oh and I don’t QT any of my fish. I only have three. I don’t know why one person on here stated all fish die if not QT. Some fish become overly stressed if put in a QT. You will see some people like to QT and medicate even if fish shows no symptoms of being sick. Not all of us can QT fish. It isn’t practical. There are some people who don’t medicate but they do place fish in a QT.

Anak’s Reef · Sep 7, 2020

Jib said:
What is she being protected from?

My cleaner shrimp who always try’s to jump on her to clean.

Reefing_addiction · Sep 7, 2020

Mandarinfish20 said:
My cleaner shrimp who always try’s to jump on her to clean.

You may want to try a freshwater dip.
Your cleaner shrimp is trying to clean her of parasites

Reefing_addiction · Sep 7, 2020

I found this about FW dips

Dips/Baths

40g Nano · Sep 7, 2020

Now I want a mandarin even more

dzfish17 · Sep 7, 2020

vetteguy53081 said:
This is not ammonia burn, and if you have ammonia- Water quality is not good enough to support this fish.
this fish is affected by the Lymphocystis virus or bacterial effect. To remedy- water quality is utmost and you could use melafix safely to treat skin. Mandarins usually secrete a slime to protect their skin and when water quality deteriorates, it has to be corrected quickly as mandarins are not fighters when it comes to recovery from virus or disease.

+1 After reading through this thread and seeing your other resent threads I'm going to lean towards a virus. Your clowns were not eating so you treated them, your gramma isn't eating either and now this on the mandarin.

Anak’s Reef · Sep 7, 2020

dyerrm said:
You may want to try a freshwater dip.
Your cleaner shrimp is trying to clean her of parasites

I’m not sure if she has parasite. I don’t want to take her out because she is having this problem so I don’t want to add to her stress. Maybe I should though. I don’t think so because my cleaner tries to clean everything.

Anak’s Reef · Sep 7, 2020

dzfish17 said:
+1 After reading through this thread and seeing your other resent threads I'm going to lean towards a virus. Your clowns were not eating so you treated them, your gramma isn't eating either and now this on the mandarin.

No. My clowns are eating now I think it was just because we fed pellets first and they loved it more than mysis. They are eating it now. My Gramma was just scared of water movement when I dropped the shrimp in. He now loves to swim everywhere and eat shrimp, you just have to feed him in a different way than my shrimp. I don’t know about my mandarin. People on my thread say that it’s not ammonia, but I’m really not sure what it is. None if her tank mates are hurting her and nothing is wrong with her. She’s fine, but just has that white spot. I don’t think it’s a virus. I just get fish that act a bit odd at the start. They are all fine now.

Reefing_addiction · Sep 7, 2020

14g Nano said:
How many pods do you dose per day for the fish

Mandarins will eat pods all day.you need a lot! It’s not about adding pods daily it’s about having a population that can keep up with the fishes appetite.