Mandarin dragonet?

Mattchamp · Mar 4, 2013

Hello so I was wondering is it possible to keep 1 mandarin dragonet in a 75 gallon tank with no refugium? And do I have to dose pods? The tank has been up for 1.5 years

Eric B · Mar 4, 2013

Yes it is possible but I would make sure that you have a large pod population in the tank. You might also want to do some searching on here and maybe reef central as people have gotten mandarins to eat prepared food as well and see how they went about it.

fishroomlady · Mar 4, 2013

That is my next venture, is to have a pair of mandarins. I don't have a refugium either......I've asked my LFS to order them in and try to convert to prepared food.......we'll see how that goes......

Tabasco1 · Mar 4, 2013

You can youtube mandarin training for some ideas on how to train. Also mandarin dinner. Marvinsreef has some info on mandarin diners as well. I had one that I trained using the dinner. It is possible, I would strongly recommend training it in a 10g and having it trained before letting it go in the 75 where it will be much harder to keep an eye on it. They are amazingly great at swimming directly by food that is right in front of their face. I used frozen roe to get an initial feeding response and then gradually mixed NLS small pellets and frozen PE mysis in with the frozen roe.

Don't do it unless you have alot of patience and time to dedicate to the training. I do not think that a 75 without a refugium would be enough to house a mandarin for very long without training. Maybe a couple months. Those things eat all day and will clear out pod populations FAST.

Good luck!

that novice guy · Mar 4, 2013

well do you see bugs on your rocks and on your glass close to the sand bed and you should be fine

Tabasco1 · Mar 4, 2013

Unless you have a protected area for the pods to reproduce without predation they will get hunted out. If you don't have a fuge, you can look at creating a pod pile. Basically a pile of rubble rock that the pods can live and reproduce in with some protection. I have never used one, so I don't know how big it would need to be.

If it were me I would train a mandarin in a 75 wo a fuge.

Mattchamp · Mar 4, 2013

I do see a lot of small bug like creatures from time to time but they're amphipods though will they eat amphipods too?

Tabasco1 · Mar 4, 2013

Heres a good write up of a training method. If you are seeing them from time to time, I'd guess you don't have enough. My tank was crawling in them. The mandarin took them out in 2 weeks. Just cuz you don't have a viable population doesn't mean if this is your dream fish you can't get it. You just need to train it. Correction to above post, it is Melev's reef mandarin diner, not Marvin

Got confused with the M's and the V's.

This write up is by one of the first (possibly the first) person to successfully breed this fish. I didn't use exactly this method, I started with roe and that worked and I think was easier. But I did have a diner and I put food in it every day for him. The roe and NLS pellets and roe soaked in selcon. Also make sure you have a screen top. They are actually pretty good jumpers... incidentally.

Marine Ornamental Fish & Invertebrate Breeders • View topic - Weaning mandarins to frozen and pellets

facade480 · Mar 4, 2013

You can always spend a little more and buy an ORA tanked raised mandarin. Most of them are ready to take frozen food right away.

that novice guy · Mar 4, 2013

Yea my girl is trained to eat nutamar ova and she's a chuncker

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Tabasco1 · Mar 4, 2013

ORA is a good way to go just cuz it's good to buy captive bred. Just do some research on those. When they were first released many people were having the same feeding issues as with the wild caught and they would gradually starve. They are probably a couple generations into the fish now so maybe that has changed, but do a quick search on them to see.

facade480 · Mar 5, 2013

I have seen ORA mandarin fish that refuses to eat frozen food. The best bet is to ask the LFS to feed them as you watch. That way you can be sure that it does indeed take frozen food.

jedidad · Mar 5, 2013

i have never seen a mandarin not eat nutramar ova when offered. they seem to love the stuff as will everything else in the tank. finding a local supplier can be tough though. Its expensive to order yourself because shipping frozen food is pricey.

2tankz · Mar 5, 2013

+1 for Ova! It's works great for getting difficult fish onto prepared foods. A friend of mine used it to get his harlequin filefish onto flake/mysis.

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