My Attempt at Breeding Mandarin Dragonetts!

Reef Breeders · Jan 19, 2012

Hi, I have a decent amount of experience culturing (10 months) copepods, plankton, and more recently, rotifers. I have decided to start off with a more challenging fish, and since no truly satisfying method has been published, I will start my own method based on successful breeders notes. To tumble the eggs, I created this:

The water will be heated to 82 degrees, and the eggs will be in the 2 liter bottles with an airstone to circulate them and pevent fungi from killing the eggs. The hatched larvae will then move to a 10 gallon tank (or tub?) with an airstone, and daily water changes. Once the fish are a little bigger, I will transfer them to a 40B that is loaded with pods & chaeto. I purchased a breeding pair, and they should arrive tuesday. I have kept a mandarins successfully, which was unfortunetaly consumed by my carpet anemone, which will go to my lfs tommorrow or this weekend.

Just Clownin Around · Jan 19, 2012

Congrats
Following along

Reef Breeders · Jan 19, 2012

gaita98911 said:
Congrats
Following along

Thanks! I will hopefully learn enough from the first few spawns to bring a bunch to adulthood. If I succeed, I will do a good write up on how I did it and upgrade the breeding setup ( I plan on computerizing it with the apex). Time will tell how it goes, and hopefully there will be some more captive raised dragonetts on the market!

Reef Breeders · Jan 23, 2012

Okay, I removed this guy to make my tank "mandarin safe"

And made a nice cave to replace him, still in the works:

The mandarins are coming tomorrow! I drew up some plans for a 2 tiered tank system, basically just 2 ten gallon tanks in one stand up against the wall.

Saulsa · Jan 23, 2012

Excellent thread following along

Reloadeddevil · Jan 23, 2012

Following.

CJO · Jan 24, 2012

Good luck with it. I'm pretty sure that Matt Wittenrich added a section on breeding Mandarins in his book on "The Complete Illustrated Breeder's Guide to Marine Aquarium Fishes."

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Illustrated-Breeders-Marine-Aquarium/dp/1890087718

CJ

Reef Breeders · Jan 24, 2012

I was looking into that, maybe I'll drop $30 further down the road. The original owner of the pair (acclimating now!) sent me some of his notes, as he successfully raised them to the weaning stage (still working on weaning)

Reef Breeders · Jan 24, 2012

They decided to slink off into the rockwork, but I caught the female in a cave:

The male disappeared, but he should show up in a few hours.

JasonPG · Jan 24, 2012

Good luck! I'll def be following along!

I have a buddy who successful bred mandarins in a nanocube but forgot to turn his pumps back on after a collection night. Please remember to turn your pumps back on after collecting... it wiped his tank.

Have the broodstock been weaned onto frozen or are they exclusively eating live foods?

cdness · Jan 24, 2012

If you get this to work I so want one!!

Good luck!

Reef Breeders · Jan 24, 2012

JasonPG said:
Good luck! I'll def be following along!

I have a buddy who successful bred mandarins in a nanocube but forgot to turn his pumps back on after a collection night. Please remember to turn your pumps back on after collecting... it wiped his tank.

Have the broodstock been weaned onto frozen or are they exclusively eating live foods?

I was following his thread on MOFIB, I was upset that it had to end that way. I have a 90 gallon tank, so an overnighter with no pumps isn't a big deal.

Reef Breeders · Jan 24, 2012

JasonPG said:
Good luck! I'll def be following along!

I have a buddy who successful bred mandarins in a nanocube but forgot to turn his pumps back on after a collection night. Please remember to turn your pumps back on after collecting... it wiped his tank.

Have the broodstock been weaned onto frozen or are they exclusively eating live foods?

They are eating a mix of frozen/live/pods according to the original owner.

Reef Breeders · Jan 24, 2012

cdness said:
If you get this to work I so want one!!

Good luck!

I will LYK, they should be eating flake/frozen by the time I'm done weaning them.

bige · Jan 24, 2012

Very cool. Good luck. Following for sure.

Reef Breeders · Jan 24, 2012

I changed the plans a little, I will put the eggs in a blacked out tank with a timed light and no water exchange (technique of the seller) until they hatch.

CJO · Jan 25, 2012

anemonekeeper said:
I was looking into that, maybe I'll drop $30 further down the road. The original owner of the pair (acclimating now!) sent me some of his notes, as he successfully raised them to the weaning stage (still working on weaning)

I spoke with Matt yesterday and he said that he didn't have anything in there on mandarins.. maybe in the next revision.

CJ

Reef Breeders · Jan 25, 2012

CJO said:
I spoke with Matt yesterday and he said that he didn't have anything in there on mandarins.. maybe in the next revision.

CJ

It would be great if I could contact him, he was obviously successful at rearing mandarins.

CJO · Jan 26, 2012

anemonekeeper said:
It would be great if I could contact him, he was obviously successful at rearing mandarins.

He's up to 7 species of dragonets now! I had asked him if he could join this thread, but he said that he was pretty busy with writing grant proposals and his pending wedding, but would try to answer a question or two. He also said that you can find most of the information from MOFIB (which you are already on), MBI and doing a Google search for "wittenrich mandarins."

CJ