Green mandarin dragonet In 10 gallon tank

[saltyhog]

The problem with mandarins that are eating frozen is that they must eat all day long. Unless you are going to feed small amounts literally all day it's going to be difficult to keep them on frozen alone.

There ought to be a law against loving Leopard & Halichoeres wrasses and mandarins. At least for me those have been mutually exclusive.

 

[Jesterrace]

Hey now, leave the Wrasses out of this. I agree though, 3-4 times a day minimum for frozen adapted mandys. Might work if you are a stay at home parent (or work at home) or independently wealthy.

 

[saltyhog]

No way I'm leaving wrasses out.....that's why I don't have the mandarin I want!

 

[DSC reef]

The problem with mandarins that are eating frozen is that they must eat all day long. Unless you are going to feed small amounts literally all day it's going to be difficult to keep them on frozen alone.

There ought to be a law against loving Leopard & Halichoeres wrasses and mandarins. At least for me those have been mutually exclusive.

This is a point I try to make and agree 100%. When vendors sell mandarins saying they eat prepared foods most will assume normal feedings with fish will suffice. Our mandarin ate frozen, refrigerated, pellets and live foods but the mandarin was fed many times throughout the day including addition of pods.

 

[ngoodermuth]

No way I'm leaving wrasses out.....that's why I don't have the mandarin I want!

I have a single female mandarin in my 120g with wrasses (Including 3 leopards and 1 halichoerus) She’s doing just fine, looks like a pot-bellied pig lol I’ve had her for two years

That said no way in a 10g, or a 30g, or a 65g... ask me how I know? I cultured pods, made various feeders, trained to eat frozen, hatched baby brine, dosed pods etc,etc etc. It doesn’t work long term. It just doesn’t. I haven’t had success until I finally upgraded to a tank larger than 100 gallons... I’d say 75g is the rock-bottom minimum if it’s packed with live rock and little or no competition for pods.

 

[Stigigemla]

As long as the mandarin is the only fish in the tank it i possible to train it to eat frozen food.
You need a pipette and drop the food just in front of its nose to begin. After a few days it should begin to pick it up from the bottom.

 

[saltyhog]

I have a single female mandarin in my 120g with wrasses (Including 3 leopards and 1 halichoerus) She’s doing just fine, looks like a pot-bellied pig lol I’ve had her for two years

That said no way in a 10g, or a 30g, or a 65g... ask me how I know? I cultured pods, made various feeders, trained to eat frozen, hatched baby brine, dosed pods etc,etc etc. It doesn’t work long term. It just doesn’t. I haven’t had success until I finally upgraded to a tank larger than 100 gallons... I’d say 75g is the rock-bottom minimum if it’s packed with live rock and little or no competition for pods.

I never see any pods in my tank....at least not the copepods that are appropriate sized for mandarins. I am envious!

 

[davocean]

Too many people ignore the metabolism issue.

They eat 1-3 pods per minute, that must be provided or replicated in some manner.

No way would I have a mandarin in less than a 75g tank, and that would be w/ a fuge, and no real pod competition.

If you provide their needs they can be relatively easy to keep, but if you can't then nearly impossible long term.

Thinking you are ok feeding them frozen 3-4x a day is just a slow death coming.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

I'm going to say No...with exceptions. Ill try to explain some in and outs.

A great analogy for mandarins is humming birds. They both have extremely high metabolisms and eat all day.

Wild Caught: For 99% of hobbyist, no.
Exception: 10 gallon display tank, 20+ gallon fuge with lots of macroalgae/surface area for the pods to live + you are dosing phytoplankton regularly, and you regularly adding pods. Even then, you will need to actively monitor the mandarins health to ensure it is eating enough.
Exception 2: Hatch baby brine shrimp every day, enrich the brine shrimp with phyto, and feed to the tank. Life will likely happen and you will not be able to keep this routine up.

Captive bred: These guys are significantly easier to keep, but I wouldn't recommend keeping them without pods. You will need to feed them prepared food about 3 times a day in a tank that size with few pods to graze on. You should also avoid fish that are going to "follow" the mandarin around and eat the food before the mandarin decides it should eat it. We can keep around 30 captive bred mandarins at a time in a 55 gallon tank with other fish and they live on 95%+ prepared food. But this is our job and feed them 3 times a day to keep them fat. This also prevents mandarins that never took to the prepared food training from reaching our end customers.


FYI, Spotted mandarins tend to be easier to train to eat frozen/prepared, but they still require copepods.

If you are willing to have a refugium much much larger than the display tank, its very doable. If you don't want to put the work into setting up the refugium, please look for another fish.

 

[Zindebaad]

Get a captive-bred, tank-raised Mandarin from BIOTA. These will eat eat a variety of prepared foods. I have one of these in my 10 gallon and he's doing just fine. Mandarins are very lovable fish!

 

[Zindebaad]

Get a captive-bred, tank-raised Mandarin from BIOTA. These will eat eat a variety of prepared foods. I have one of these in my 10 gallon and he's doing just fine. Mandarins are very lovable fish!

 

[dylana407]

Get a captive-bred, tank-raised Mandarin from BIOTA. These will eat eat a variety of prepared foods. I have one of these in my 10 gallon and he's doing just fine. Mandarins are very lovable fish!

You don't need to supply pods? How often do you feed it?

 

[Claus84]

Get a captive-bred, tank-raised Mandarin from BIOTA. These will eat eat a variety of prepared foods. I have one of these in my 10 gallon and he's doing just fine. Mandarins are very lovable fish!

How long have you had it? 10g is a pretty poor tank size for a mandarin, mine is from biota, had it over 2 years first in a 90g now in a 300g. Unless you are feeding many many times through the day, which would likely severely impact the water quality in a 10g they absolutely need access to pods and/or a similar constant food source such as baby brine from a feeder.

 

[dylana407]

How long have you had it? 10g is a pretty poor tank size for a mandarin, mine is from biota, had it over 2 years first in a 90g now in a 300g. Unless you are feeding many many times through the day, which would likely severely impact the water quality in a 10g they absolutely need access to pods and/or a similar constant food source such as baby brine from a feeder.

Everything you said makes sense. Constantly feeding prep food in a 10g can foul the water in no time.

 

[ScottR]

I agree that the consensus is: 10g just isn’t big enough to sustain a mandarin. Unless you want to starve it. These are demanding fish to say the least.

 

[Sorcha2]

In addition to the feeding issue they can get quite a bit larger than the ones you normally see in the lfs and swim more than you would think. I personally wouldn't try to keep any sort of dragonet in a small tank. Even in a larger tank they take a lot of care.

 

[Tamberav]

Yes but mostly under specific conditions built for them. I kept one in a nano for 5 years before I moved but my tank was a macroalgae nano with a large fuge. I also fed it frozen a few times a day which also fed the pods. I carbon dosed with an oversized skimmers so could feed the pods even more and keep nitrates around 10.

I mostly used the article in coral magazine to build a tank around their needs. It has an article with 29g AIO in there with breeding pairs. I can't remember which issue but it has a dragonett picture on the cover.

There is a biota mandarin in a 14g biocube kept on another forum without problems. They have a dirtier tank and dose nopox to deal with the feedings.

Definitely a challenging fish for a beginner though.

 

[actik]

If it helps at all algae barn sells mandarin that eat both pods and frozen mysis etc, you'd have to constantly add pods and feed it foods multiple times a day I'd imagine

 

[Claus84]

Yes but mostly under specific conditions built for them. I kept one in a nano for 5 years before I moved but my tank was a macroalgae nano with a large fuge. I also fed it frozen a few times a day which also fed the pods. I carbon dosed with an oversized skimmers so could feed the pods even more and keep nitrates around 10.

I mostly used the article in coral magazine to build a tank around their needs. It has an article with 29g AIO in there with breeding pairs. I can't remember which issue but it has a dragonett picture on the cover.

There is a biota mandarin in a 14g biocube kept on another forum without problems. They have a dirtier tank and dose nopox to deal with the feedings.

Definitely a challenging fish for a beginner though.

The trouble is that those that survive in these small tanks are the exception rather than the rule and are often kept by experienced hobbyists or those willing to go the extra mile (and understanding what that entails in advance with regards to dragonets). Generally IMO larger tanks should be recommend for 95% of hobbyists out there.

 

[NS Mike D]

I have a mandarin dragonet in my 29 gal for a year and a half now. Thought I could dose pods monthly (expensive). I ended up adding a second sump so the HOB is dedicated to growing cheato for pod cultivation. I dose phyto to help the population . The extra feeding (it will eat ROE and LRS) resulted in a massive GHA/cyano/dino problem that took me nearly a year to resolve. I still have GHA on 30% of my rocks and leave it to create pod hiding places. I also have a rock with culpera in the DT for pods and have trim it every few days to prevent it from running amuk.

I post this to share first hand experience confirming the posts that say a dragonet can wipe out a tank pod population in a matter of hours/days and unless you have a large tank, it will require significant time and money and limit what you can do in your DT.

Oh yeah. my initial plan was more simple. The dragonet ate frozen food in the LFS. That's what I would do when I got it home. Well that went down the tubes when the chromis and clowns made sure that dragonet would not get any food.