Green Mandarin

[Brooks Allman]

I bought a large mandarin at the LFS, he’s very healthy and fat. I drip acclimated him on Saturday. He’s been swimming around exploring my reefer 350 since but today when I got home from work he was on the sand bed just lying there. He had white spots on him which scared me because he is my first fish after a 11 week fallow period. I saw him flash on the sand once yesterday but not since. The white spots fell off when he was spooked by the turkey baster I was using to feed coral. So I don’t think it’s ich. Hopefully anyways cause that would be a major let down. Params are stable and he’s the only fish in the tank. I have pods covering everything and for the first day or two he was plucking away at everything. So no competition or bullying fish. Idk what the deal is.. maybe just still adjusting to the new tank??

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Probably a bit of bullying or getting to know you’s I would suspect. When stressed they will do similarly to what they do at night and fade thier colors and thicken the slime coat. Stuff does get stuck to it.
Mandarins are poisonous so they don’t get a lot of the bugs other fish get.

 

[Billdogg]

Mandarins are poisonous so they don’t get a lot of the bugs other fish get.

Because the OP stated that there are no other fish in the tank I doubt that it is being bullied. The "spots" on it were more likely just bits of sand that stuck to it's slime coat (and FWIW, the slime coat is what helps the mandarin repel Ich and some other parasites - not that it is poisonous (it is, to a degree, that's just not why they rarely get ich)

 

[4FordFamily]

Wait, you went fallow for 11 weeks and then just tossed a fish in the tank?

It could be sand, without a pic it’s hard to tell.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Because the OP stated that there are no other fish in the tank I doubt that it is being bullied. The "spots" on it were more likely just bits of sand that stuck to it's slime coat (and FWIW, the slime coat is what helps the mandarin repel Ich and some other parasites - not that it is poisonous (it is, to a degree, that's just not why they rarely get ich)

It’s a poisonous fish.