Mandarin goby looks skinny

[blakeu21]

I got this Mandarin goby about 3 months ago. It is in a 110 gallon tank and I have noticed that he looks skinny. Any suggestions?

 

[PocketGoose]

They require an established pod population to eat daily. You could try bolstering your pod population to start. They can be trained on frozen feeds but it will take time. I used to shut down all the pumps and drop some frozen mysis around my mandarin. Eventually it ate like a cow - but it took awhile.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

poor thing.... Is it still cruising rocks or just sitting on the sand now? If it just sits there then its done, that is too thin to recover from

 

[jerrod]

Does the mandarin actively hunt/move around? He could be starving, if you can isolate the mandarin in a fish trap or put him in a small tank try feeding it copepods. If he is not moving around google "can o cyclops" by Zoo Med and try to feed it that as its concentrated. I would try to isolate so the food stays next to him and doesn't broadcast across the tank. I have rescued a starving mandarin using this to get them healthy enough to start hunting again.

 

[DaJMasta]

It is very thin. Was your tank mature when it was added? Have you observed copepods in the system before?

It's likely only chance is going to be adding a lot of microfauna - I'd add copepods from any source you can get, really, but amphipods or munnid isopods in bulk would help too. Not only do you have to get enough nutrition for it to hold on and start recovering, but you need enough population in the tank that they can start colonizing it - 110G is plenty of space for a copepod population to naturally sustain a mandarin (at least, with sand and rock work), but it looks pretty clear that the population did not get the start it needed and has been exhausted.

Personally, I would doubt there's time to train it onto frozen, but if you can catch it and keep it in something like a mesh breeder box on the side of the tank, you could try offering some frozen (bloodworms have been the first accepted with mine, generally, but mysis are usually good too) alongside some live foods (copepods, amphipods, even bloodworms/blackworms could work in the short term), and have the breeder box contain them in a small enough space for the mandarin to be able to find them quickly. Even live brine shrimp could be something, but really don't offer much nutrition.

If you can get it through the next couple of weeks and get a little weight on, I'd recommend feeding some fine particulate foods and phytoplankton to the tank just to encourage copepod growth, for at least a month to try and get the copepod population a foodhold.

 

[blakeu21]

It is very thin. Was your tank mature when it was added? Have you observed copepods in the system before?

It's likely only chance is going to be adding a lot of microfauna - I'd add copepods from any source you can get, really, but amphipods or munnid isopods in bulk would help too. Not only do you have to get enough nutrition for it to hold on and start recovering, but you need enough population in the tank that they can start colonizing it - 110G is plenty of space for a copepod population to naturally sustain a mandarin (at least, with sand and rock work), but it looks pretty clear that the population did not get the start it needed and has been exhausted.

Personally, I would doubt there's time to train it onto frozen, but if you can catch it and keep it in something like a mesh breeder box on the side of the tank, you could try offering some frozen (bloodworms have been the first accepted with mine, generally, but mysis are usually good too) alongside some live foods (copepods, amphipods, even bloodworms/blackworms could work in the short term), and have the breeder box contain them in a small enough space for the mandarin to be able to find them quickly. Even live brine shrimp could be something, but really don't offer much nutrition.

If you can get it through the next couple of weeks and get a little weight on, I'd recommend feeding some fine particulate foods and phytoplankton to the tank just to encourage copepod growth, for at least a month to try and get the copepod population a foodhold.

So it’s still not doing well should I try putting it in my refugee since I know I have pods in there? It’s gone into not swimming and looks like it’s gonna die soon.

 

[3sgterror]

Look up the Paul B Mandarin feeder. You can build one for cheap. You'll have to hatch brine shrimp but it will be the easiest way to get it back on track, while your supplement with pods.

 

[DaJMasta]

So it’s still not doing well should I try putting it in my refugee since I know I have pods in there? It’s gone into not swimming and looks like it’s gonna die soon.

I sort of hate to say it this way but I would like to be direct: when you first posted was the time to act (well, really, past it), and while I am in favor of giving them a fighting chance and moving them to a lower flow area with more food options, realistically I think the time you could have done something for it is over. Generally speaking, when you see them (virtually any marine creature) starting to have difficulty swimming or acting erratically, they may already be too far gone to save.

Animals aren't likely to show their weaknesses until they literally can't help it because in most environments and situations, showing weakness gets you predated in pretty short order. Do what you can now, but please let this be a lesson in the future: when you see signs of something being wrong, by all means try to act and help, but it may already be too late.

 

[musel101]

Hope he makes it