Mandarin Goby

Sean Norman · Mar 21, 2020

My tank is about 2 months old. It is a IM 112 Lagoon, with a lot of live rock. Two weeks prior to adding any fish, I added 5280 Pods from Algae Barn, I have been feeding Phytoplankton each week since.
At night when I look into the tank with a flashlight I see all of them thriving. I would say at times it looks like an ant hill was kicked over.
I am thinking of adding some more- my sump does not seem to have as many.

I have two questions:
I know that all the literature states to wait until the tank is more mature- but with what seems like a healthy population- could I add a Mandarin or Ruby Red Goby in the next few weeks?
Also has anyone had any experiences with purchasing a tank raised Goby vs wild caught? Algae Barn has them in their site??

Thanks.
Sean

Redfoxtang · Mar 21, 2020

You could either add one now or one later. I would say later and the mandarin would put a massive dent in that pod population. I would at least wait a couple more weeks for the pods to start reproducing so you don’t have to keep buying pods. I also do not have experience with these gobies as most of mine love to carpet surf!

Uncle99 · Mar 21, 2020

I estimate my Mandarin eats 1,000 pods a day.
I put him in 3 years ago after the tank was a year old.
While I have other fish, I do not have any more exclusive pod eaters, ie, same mouth configuration.
I am not much for captive bred, usually real small and don’t ship well at all.
Some say their mandarin eats other foods, mine just watches the stuff go by, and resumes his move then peck habit.
If you wait, and don’t have competition, you never need to feed this fish or buy PODs.

xxkenny90xx · Mar 21, 2020

Redfoxtang said:
You could either add one now or one later. I would say later and the mandarin would put a massive dent in that pod population. I would at least wait a couple more weeks for the pods to start reproducing so you don’t have to keep buying pods. I also do not have experience with these gobies as most of mine love to carpet surf!

Youve had dragonettes carpet surf?? That's strange, I never thought of them as jumpers

Redfoxtang · Mar 21, 2020

xxkenny90xx said:
Youve had dragonettes carpet surf?? That's strange, I never thought of them as jumpers

Believe it or not I’ve had 2 of them do it. I also thought it was weird but strange things happen when the lights are off!!

Kn0w0n3 · Mar 21, 2020

I've had one for 1 year and yeah they do tend to finish off your pod population fairly quickly. I would recommend a refuguim to keep the population up. If no sump then at least a hang on fuge would be great.