Which fish is easier

[JedClampett]

Which is easier to keep alive, and to eat prepared food, leopard wrasse or mandarin gobby

 

[Breakthecycle2]

They are both just as hard if they don't eat prepared foods.

 

[Oscaror]

Neither is usually considered difficult anymore. A lot of people keep leopard wrasses successfully if they just get them to eat prepared foods, and captive bred mandarins that eat prepared foods are very common now, in fact they're more common than the wild caught ones.

 

[m0nkie]

mandarin goby is easy if you have the right size tank. I believe at least 75gal with a sump. If you have anything smaller, you will need to have rock piles so pods can build up

 

[Waters]

I agree with Oscaror......both can usually be taught to eat prepared foods. My leopard wrasse eats everything from pellets to flake to Mysis without any issues. Although I have not kept Mandarins, it seems to be pretty common to get those to eat foods other than pods as well.

 

[JedClampett]

If you could get them to eat prepared, could either be kept in a well established 40g with lots of rock work

 

[4FordFamily]

Leopards are actually really hard but after the first month most of them are immensely hardy. It's getting them treated for internal parasites and eating that's critical.

 

[eatbreakfast]

The difficulty with leopard wrasses is that they do not handle the stresses of shipping welll, but once acclimated to aquaria are quite hardy.

Mandarins handle shipping well and are disease resistant, but have a very short digestive tract, they need to eat almost constantly, even if you found one that was eating, they would still need a large and stable pod supply to keep them satiated. Usually a 50g or larger that has been setup for 6 months or longer will suffice.

And even though mandarins have been captive bred for some time, the big suppliers of captive bred fish, such as O.R.A. have not offered them for sale for some time now.