How to take good care of Green Mandarin Fish?

[heman]

Hi experts out there,

can i ask for sharing of successful experience in keeping this nice fellow-Green Mandarin Fish.

Read that they are carnivores and eat vitamin enriched brine shrimp. Also

understand that they do well in mature tanks....

any other useful info to share so that this beauty can be well taken care of without fearing it will starve itself to death?

[AlfaRomeo]

More suited for large tanks as they tend to feed on pods exclusively which smallish tanks cannot sustain in quantity..

[heman]

anyway to increase the pods population of a tank?

[surfedelic]

Try live brine Shrimp first .... and then slowly changed to frozen brine shrimp.

[nim75sg]

If you decide to keep this fish, just make sure that you have plenty of establish live rock so that they can find enough food to thrive.

The normal diet is small marine animals that live on the bottom of the sand bed.

[hamannbmw]

jus my experience :

i had a mandarin fish for few months, it is feeding on frozen brine shrimps...but its a slow moving fish , therefore most of the food will end up feeding other fishes, it is essential to have a large tank with sufficient pods for it to survive....

my mandarin end up..........

[nicholasloh]

You could try dosing plankton in the tank to increase the copepod populations.

[flubberina13]

They are basically 'ground' feeders...

"ground' as in wherever they 'glide' onto, they will 'choop choop' on the area. And they like to eat in peace...thus avoid keeping boisterous fish with them.

I had lots of copepods back then and my Mandy was pui pui and he even managed to start feeding on sinking pellets after frozen brine shrimps...

He jumped out of the tub that I was holding my livestock in preparation of restructuring my tank...

Will definitely get one again...

[Joe_P]

I'm thinking of getting one too...

The best thing to get this thing alive for the long run is to get it to feed on processed or frozen food.

[chrislwp]

I have never successfully kept a single fish from Re**** for months except this mandarin fish.

It only feed on copepods in my tank.

[shaohui75]

Is it true that the way to increase your copepods is to dose phytoplankton? Is there any way to make my mandarin eat process food/flakes/pellets?

[freddychin]

Is a beautiful fish. I like the way its swims and it look like a frog from front.

You will have no worry if you have a big tank.

How big is your tank ?

[patrick123]

I have one in my 6ft tank. Don't know what it is eating but quite pui lay.... may be all the left over food.

[jason]

my green mandarin is in my 6ft tank for about 1.5 years. it will take frozen and live brine shrimp.... it will even swim to eat frozen brine shrimp.

What i do is when i buy my mandarin, i will place my mandarin in a container full of frozen brine shrimp..... and let it slowly get use to eating.... frozen brine shrimp. then release into main tank

[moxa]

I have one red Mandarin Fish for about 5 months+ in my 2ft FOWLR.

very difficult to let this cutie grow fat. Have to feed it with live brine shrimp. The smallest or medium size.

It can find some of it natural food source from live rock or sand floor however my don't seems to have sufficent food source for it.

It better to have a large and established tank before having this cutie inside the tank. IMO.

In the morning you can see that these cutie have a very pale color if is stay in the open sand floor. Proabaly "camoflouge" during the night.

Regards,

Moxa

[CalciumReef]

This might be a good readup

Click me

[nicholasloh]

Here are my tips:

- Take a tank ornament out, and dip it in freshwater, if you see LOTS of things coming out of the ornament, u're ready.

- Dose Phyto, this is to increase pod populations, and trust me, every night i'll spot lots of pods on the glass.

- Refugium, not nesseccary. (you could haf ur refugium at ur sump juz by putting rocks there. dun worry abt ur pods getting stuck on filter sponge, they are smaller than the pores.)

- Tank must be >3mths

- No more than 2 other competing fish. (includes seahorse, wrasse...)

[Eric]

Here are my tips:

- Take a tank ornament out, and dip it in freshwater, if you see LOTS of things coming out of the ornament, u're ready.

- Dose Phyto, this is to increase pod populations, and trust me, every night i'll spot lots of pods on the glass.

- Refugium, not nesseccary. (you could haf ur refugium at ur sump juz by putting rocks there. dun worry abt ur pods getting stuck on filter sponge, they are smaller than the pores.)

- Tank must be >3mths

- No more than 2 other competing fish. (includes seahorse, wrasse...)

pods only come out in the night meh? My pods can be seen on the tank glass where algae starting to form anytime of the day.............feast time to the corals everytime I wipe the glass.

Eric

[danano]

Sharing my experience...

I've had my one and only Mandarin for almost a year now and it's the fattest fish in the tank. The 60+kg of quality LR, I believe, is providing it with an abundent source of food. It picks on the LR the whole day!

It does not have to compete with other fish for food.

[moxa]

Today my Red mandarin will be adopted by the new owner.

Hopes it grow fast soon enough.

cheers

MOxa

[tiger]

Hi, Hi, yes me also just got one green mandarin a week ago. Nice cute fish, but I managed to get this big fella, about 3 to 4" big.

Would like to know, if they die, usually after how long, like 3 to 4 days, and if they survive like 2 weeks does it mean they will make it.

Mine like big time hunter, go around the whole tank LR chomping on dun know what. Me, tank is just 4x2.5x2.5' big, can this Mandarin survive in such tank? or need a bigger tank?

Tank setup is about 8 months old.

Can we keep more than one mandarin then?

tks.

[nicholasloh]

u can...but watch out for territorial fights... 4ft is more than big enuff.mine only 3ft