Mandarin Dragonets

I would love to have one of these. I've heard they are very hard to care for though. Anyone have any experience with them ?

 

I got lucky and picked one up that was already eating prepared food. That is where the difficulty is. Some can be trained to eat prepared foods some can't. If you have a well established tank that had pods introduced at some point you may have a large enough population to support it with live food. Otherwise you can always culture live food. Once they are eating they seem pretty hardy.

 

how big is your tank?
how old?
do you have a sump/fuge?

I wouldn't rely on ones that are "eating frozen foods or dry foods" alot of times they'll stop eating them and without a HUGE pod population, they slowly starve over months.

 

I've had a few in a tank that was setup 3-4 years & still had problems keeping them. They constantly scour for food & can be hard to keep alive on hand feeding. I think they can be one of the hardest to keep alive long term. People might be able to keep them around for months but they slowly starve. It also depends on other type of fish you keep. If you keep other carnivorous fish that will eat pods, then that will make it less likely for survival for a mandarin. It does take an established tank to keep them cause they will decimate your pod population in time. I think you need a decent size tank with plenty of places for pods to reproduce. I would love to have another in my tank but I'm not gonna waste my cash having to stock my tank so it stays healthy.

 

My tank has been up and running for about 3 months now. Three fish in it. Clown, coral beauty and a royal gramma. I doubt I have pods in there yet. I saw where live aquaria has some liquid stuff that they recommend to feed it but don't know anything about it. Tank may not be established enough yet.

 

Too young IMO, go to ReefCleaners.org (and tell them DevinH from 3reef sent you in the notes!) and order some pods. Add them to the refugium area of your sump and wait a few months.

 

Way too new for a mandarin! And a 55g prob isnt enough room to produce the pods needed to house one. Unless you have a sump/fuge growing a TON of them, I wouldn't risk it. Sorry.

 

Problem with Mandarins is they need to eat constantly. Their digestive system is not like most fish, don't think they have a stomach, which is why they are always pecking. I think I've read they will eat on average1 pod every 10 seconds. This is why feeding frozen or even live brine say doesn't always work, unless you're prepared to stand over your tank and feed constantly. Get the pod population up first.

 

If you have empty snail shells pile them up in the back corners of the tank. This gives pods a place to hide and breed with no predators. Are mandarin we have had for 3 years and has moved to new tanks 4x. I always stack shells in the corners and are mandarin always hunts them makin it's rounds around the tank.

But ours also eats new life spectrum pellets. We used a baby food jar and put pellets in it on the sand bed. All day and room out at night. Now everytine we throw pellets on he starts looking for them as they hit the sand and eats them.

 

I have had one in a 40 gallon breeder for about a year and a half now. Mine actually feeds mostly on amphipods instead of copepods. Amphipods are stupidly easy to get established in a tank. For mine I just took a chunk of algae from the local salt marsh and tossed it in my refugium. Within a month or two the things were everywhere. From watching it, it will eat frozen shrimp pieces if they drift in front of it, but won't really chase after them in the current. Big tank isn't really necessary, I have seen people with them feeding on pods and doing fine in 20 gallon tanks. Mainly there just has to be enough macro-plankton established for them to eat.