Mandarin goby

Ok so feeding is this issue right? What do y'all do for feeding ? They eat pods right ? Well I have a large number if the little ones that look like fleas on my glass. Is that the right kind if pod or do o need a different kind. I saw were they sell bottles of copepods. Is that recommended ?

 

If you have a device with access to Apple's App Store, there is a free app from Coral Magazine. They just recently did a spread on Dragonets and I thought it was very informative. I feel that I have a better understanding on how to take care of my Scooter Blenny now.

The biggest thing I took from the article was about the huge misconception on tank sizes and dragonets. The popular notion is that you need a tank with a large amount of live rock housing a vast amount of pods for a dragonet to survive.

The author said that it's a hippy approach to just throw in a mandarin and hope that "the reef will provide." He said no matter how much LR or pods you have, dragonets must still be fed. The author mentioned seeing mandarins starve to death in 100+ gallons tank with tons of LR and pods.

As far as my dragonet, I was lucky and he started eating Arcti Pods from me right away. He now knows what the turkey baster is and comes to eat when its feeding time. I've read about others who've had success with pellets and frozen food.

 

I haven't fed mine and its been in the tank for almost a year. He could care less about prepared foods.90 gallon tank. I don't know if I just got an extremely shy one or what but as soon as he sees me he disapears into the rockwork.Would love to try a turkey baster full of food but I can't even get close to the tank before he heads for the hills. I am going to have to read this article because it sounds crazy to me. I would think there must be other factors involved with them starving to death such as a disease or parasite.

 

My brother had one in a 20g for a while before the tube anenome got him...swallowed him whole. He was starting to come out at feeding time so I'm sure he would have eventually taken to that as well.

Anyways, yes the bottle of pods at the LFS will work just fine, to feed pods and have them multiply dose phyto and all will be happy. Just keep an eye on your population. Having a fuge will help keep the population up.

I'm going to give the article a read as well, sounds pretty interesting.

 

Oh I bet there are so many more factors. That's what I've noticed about this hobby so far, so hard to figure out things in our tanks. Every tank has different dynamics. Guess it's like keeping any other pet though. Someone may say they hate dogs because they always pee on their carpet and another person will be like well, mine uses the toilet and flushes it by himself.

The article was pretty interesting, definitely read it if you get a chance. The author used to breed dragonets (don't remember if he still does) and did things pretty differently than others. He mentioned keeping four different mating pairs of different dragonet species together in a 25 gallon tank and it worked. That definitely surprised me.

 

imo the best way to keep a mandarin is to just have a large tank with a ton of live rock. its much more natural for them to swim around and pick on the rock.
also keep in mind just how many pods these things will go through and that will get quite pricey. it helps if you still have a bit of live rock for him to snack on between feedings and such.

 

Definitely agree with that!! Tank bred Mandarins will surely take to prepared foods much easier then wild caught obviously. Also it may be much easier to "train" them in a smaller tank.Tankmates also play a huge factor. Mixing this fish with aggresive feeders is not a good idea.They are timid by nature and would likely not get enough to eat.

 

How often do you feed

 

I'm growing pods, but their numbers are still small so most of his food comes from me. I feed him at least two times a day. If I'm home for a larger part of the day, I try to shoot him some extra pods once or twice.

 

From my experiences tank maturity has alot to do with it. My 46 had enough biodiversity to feed a mandarin, dottyback, and clownfish entirely for months. The tank was 4-5 years old back then and I had a ton of chaeto in the corners so I knew there was a good pod breeding ground.