Captive Bred Mandarins Soon Available

[-Nemo-]

I found this on my Local Reef Club's Boards. Exciting news so I thought I'd share.

ORA Announces Captive Bred Mandarins

For many years marine aquarium hobbyists have been captivated by the exquisite beauty of Mandarin Gobies (actually Dragonettes). Their popularity, however, is tempered by the fact that they are difficult to feed in captivity and are subject to questionable collection practices in the wild. Unfortunately, most Mandarins succumb to starvation in home aquariums, even with the best intentions and attempts at feeding. Thankfully, all of that is about to change.

ORA biologists have succeeded in developing the methods needed to breed and raise commercial numbers of the two species of Mandarins, the Blue Mandarin (Synchiropus splendidus) and the Spotted Mandarin (Synchiropus picturatus). Building on the early success of breeders such as Julian Sprung, Wolfgang Mai, and more recently Matt Wittenrich, ORA is now poised to have commercially bred Mandarins available to everyone. The significance of this cannot be understated as it is a major advance in marine aquaculture and solves many of the problems associated with keeping these species.

Just as the first captive bred Seahorses were trained to eat frozen foods, ORA has already trained our baby Mandarins to eat commercially available frozen diets. This fact alone makes them easy to feed and care for, and the average aquarist will delight in not having to worry about sources of live food for their finicky eaters. Our goal is to have them soon weaned onto a pellet diet. We expect to have these fish eating pelletized foods before being released for sale.

ORA is the leader in bringing the marine aquarium industry new and exciting aquacultured species. With the addition of Mandarins to our ever-growing list, a major milestone in aquaculture has been achieved. We are sure that our retail customers and hobbyists alike will be elated that captive raised Mandarins are finally available and that a page has been turned in the tragic history of this beloved aquarium fish.

We expect to have significant numbers of Spotted Mandarins available this summer. Blue and Red Mandarins will be available in more limited quantities around the same time.

 

[simonas]

Fantastic news

Lovely fish these and I would have been put off from keeing them due to the problems with feeding I had read about

 

[seffieuk]

However there should be a caveat here: The mandys will still need large amounts of copepods, to ensure they get the nutrition they require - so thinking that you could keep these in a nano with them just feeding on frozen would be worrying.

My sister Trod bought a cative bred mandy approx a year ago, here in the UK, so they are occassionly available, but not often.

If you are thinking of keeping a Mandy, have in place their correct dietry requirements and you wont go far wrong but to imagine you can keep one with limited copepod consumption would imo lead to failure and death

Seffie x

 

[three-fingers]

Why? What would be wrong with feeding them enriched frozen and/or pellet food?

 

[Seren]

However there should be a caveat here: The mandys will still need large amounts of copepods, to ensure they get the nutrition they require - so thinking that you could keep these in a nano with them just feeding on frozen would be worrying.

My sister Trod bought a cative bred mandy approx a year ago, here in the UK, so they are occassionly available, but not often.

If you are thinking of keeping a Mandy, have in place their correct dietry requirements and you wont go far wrong but to imagine you can keep one with limited copepod consumption would imo lead to failure and death

Seffie x

Totally agree with you Seffie, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people buy Mandies without doing their homework and thus condeming them to a very short life, at least captive bred stock, reduces the pressures on wild stock and if they are feeding on frozen food, at least give them a sporting chance of not starving in a few weeks, I'm not condoning it but while people continue to buy (and sell) these gorgeous animals in ignorance, it has to be a step forward.
S

 

[-Nemo-]

Aye Seffie, I was more excited at the fact that they would be another species that would be taken out of the wild less often rather than the fact that they would be on frozen foods, although that is a great plus and allows for more variety to be introduced into their diets.

 

[Morri]

I agree with reducing the number taken from the wild.

TMC do a very intresting speach on how little impact reefkeepers have on the fish population compared to how many of the fish get killed by fishing I cannot rember the numbers but its something like 1000 years for the reefkeepers take out as much as the fishermen kill in a year not sure how much this is true etc. but intresting all the same.

I keep a pair of mandarins in my 100 Gallon tank they both take frozen but i still dose my tank with pods every other week not cheap but better to have healthy fish

 

[Betta5]

Surely they would be able to add all the nutrition they require to the frozen diet?

 

[seffieuk]

Aye Seffie, I was more excited at the fact that they would be another species that would be taken out of the wild less often rather than the fact that they would be on frozen foods, although that is a great plus and allows for more variety to be introduced into their diets.

I didn't think of that I have a bit of a hang up re: Mandys!

Betta - the main diet of Mandys is Copepods and other small bugs - they can't get this nutrition from frozen or pellet food that is available

Seffie x

 

[steelhealr]

Wait until you all see the pricetag........

SH

 

[three-fingers]

Betta - the main diet of Mandys is Copepods and other small bugs - they can't get this nutrition from frozen or pellet food that is available

Seffie x

What makes you think that? TBH I'd think mandarins would do fine on standard marine fish flake if they would take it. Full of a broad range nutrients to suit a very broad range of fish. Copepods aren't going to be that different in composition compared to other small bugs like mysis, and mandarins aren't that different in composition to other fish either. What matters is what they will eat, and how their digestive system deals with it, nutritional composition isnt hard to get right with all the vitamin and algae products on the market .

And you can buy concentrated copepods, frozen copepods, freeze dried copepods, copepod flake food anyway .

The main diet of many species of fish is copeopods and other small bugs, across freshwater and marine, and the rest of them do fine on commercial fish food .

 

[steelhealr]

What makes you think that? TBH I'd think mandarins would do fine on standard marine fish flake if they would take it. Full of a broad range nutrients to suit a very broad range of fish. Copepods aren't going to be that different in composition compared to other small bugs like mysis, and mandarins aren't that different in composition to other fish either. What matters is what they will eat, and how their digestive system deals with it, nutritional composition isnt hard to get right with all the vitamin and algae products on the market .

Without sounding on the offensive or insulting, this is a very naive statement. Mandarins (more commonly dragonettes) are extremely difficult to keep alive in captivity. Anyone can keep a mandarin alive for a few months. Keeping them alive for years is a different story.

If someone has come up with a breeding/feeding method that can safely ensure that a mandarin can have a regular lifespan in captivity, than, I am all for it. I'd love to own one. As it stands, the majority die in captivity except those in the most experienced and knowledgable hands.

SH

 

[Betta5]

What makes you think that? TBH I'd think mandarins would do fine on standard marine fish flake if they would take it. Full of a broad range nutrients to suit a very broad range of fish. Copepods aren't going to be that different in composition compared to other small bugs like mysis, and mandarins aren't that different in composition to other fish either. What matters is what they will eat, and how their digestive system deals with it, nutritional composition isnt hard to get right with all the vitamin and algae products on the market .

Without sounding on the offensive or insulting, this is a very naive statement. Mandarins (more commonly dragonettes) are extremely difficult to keep alive in captivity. Anyone can keep a mandarin alive for a few months. Keeping them alive for years is a different story.

If someone has come up with a breeding/feeding method that can safely ensure that a mandarin can have a regular lifespan in captivity, than, I am all for it. I'd love to own one. As it stands, the majority die in captivity except those in the most experienced and knowledgable hands.

SH

I think the person was refering to the CB mandys that have been raised on and will take commercial marine food, not just the avergae wild caught ones that die because they won't eat these prepaired foods.

I would have to agree with that person. If they can manage to get everything all the other fish need to live full healthy lives into those flakes and pellets, why would it be any different for a mandy?

Surely it wouldn't be to hard to find out the nutritional value copods hold and replicated that in a prepaired food form?

 

[Harry1996]

but the mandy wont take it because they want to eat live things not ramdom things that are floating around the tank. i think it is good they are making it a little bit easyer to keep them. but they will still need some copods.

 

[three-fingers]

Without sounding on the offensive or insulting, this is a very naive statement. Mandarins (more commonly dragonettes) are extremely difficult to keep alive in captivity. Anyone can keep a mandarin alive for a few months. Keeping them alive for years is a different story.

If someone has come up with a breeding/feeding method that can safely ensure that a mandarin can have a regular lifespan in captivity, than, I am all for it. I'd love to own one. As it stands, the majority die in captivity except those in the most experienced and knowledgable hands.

SH

Likewise, not wanting to sound offensive or insulting, but you have completely misunderstood my post .

On a separate note from my post above, I wouldn't say they are extremely hard to keep at all.

As others have mentioned, it's just that they are too often bought in ignorance.

They simply just aren't suited to the vast majority of marine reef systems, especially smaller, younger ones. If you do a little research for 10 mins on the net, this seems common sense, which really does make it a real tragedy that so many of them are mis-sold or impulse bought without the seller giving advice

In species tanks it's very easy to get them on to enriched frozen food IME (do it all the time), and I find mandarins are great for FOWLR nano species tanks. But not great for adding to reef tanks, with competition from all the other fish meaning they will never get a chance to take frozen or dry food, and the lack of algal growth and competition from other fish, and lack of space meaning there's not enough live food for them. To supplement this enough for them to healthy means either spending a lot of time culturing a lot of copepods, or a lot of money buying a lot of them. It's not really difficult, just impractical for most people.

I think the person was refering to the CB mandys that have been raised on and will take commercial marine food, not just the avergae wild caught ones that die because they won't eat these prepaired foods.

I would have to agree with that person. If they can manage to get everything all the other fish need to live full healthy lives into those flakes and pellets, why would it be any different for a mandy?

Surely it wouldn't be to hard to find out the nutritional value copods hold and replicated that in a prepaired food form?

Indeed . That's where the "if they would take it" part comes in.

I was even suggesting further, that the nutritional value of copepods wouldn't even need to be replicated, and that standard fish flake/pellet would be fine for them, if not better than live food in an aquarium situation.