Green Mandarin/dragonet

[shibby]

awesoem good luck ak sounds like alreet conditions for it! i want a spotted one but ive only seen like a handful of copepods so im gonna add more LR and wait for 4 months! also buy some and establish them!


my clownies havent goen for the bugs yet! there good fishies, trained em well

 

[AK77]

I saw a couple of spotted ones in my LFS. They can be pretty hard to see as they tend to sit motionless and blend in with the background. I didn't think their colours were all that attractive though. My frozen food has been shipped and should be here soon. You can guarantee the bugger wont like any of it lol.

Edit... Tell a lie, it was a spotted goby I saw, not the spotted mandarin.

 

[kkyyllee]

before u take it home ask them to show u it eating

 

[AK77]

That's a bit hard as its 300 miles away lol.

I've seen photos of the fish and it appears to be in very good health and eating well as its pleasantly plump... not unlike my good self . The vendor assures me that its eating a variety of frozen food but I guess we'll see upon arrival. I would have thought there are sufficient copepods in the tank for the fish to eat in the interim period, should it not take frozen food.

Just looking at the glass now, I counted in excess of 50 pods. God knows how many are inside the chaeto and the other clump at the rear of the tank.

 

[littleme1969]

Mandarins will eat all day and all night, they need to inorder to maintain good body condition. Eating a pod every few minutes means you need a good thriving population of thousands. I was reading an article the other day about a guy who raised his on fish Roe.. (fish eggs) it loved them I guess its just trial and error but most importantly check him daily and keep trying him on new stuff.

 

[AK77]

Yup I've heard about the fish roe. I thought I'd give the lobster eggs a whirl as they are very small and will hopefully entice the dragonet. I've got two packs of those coming along with 2 packs of mysis shrimp. I've also got about 5 different types of freeze dried and pellet foods. If it doesn't eat any of that.. I'll strangle the sod myself

Lobster eggs

 

[littleme1969]

Good luck with the little guy I'm hoping to get one myself when my tank has had a few months to mature so will be watching this thread with great interest. Just out of interest where are you getting him from? PM me with the answer as some people on here have rather strong feelings about these been sold to nano tank owners and I would hate for them to get nasty e.mails for something I did

 

[Deep Freeze]

I keep hearing online that they need 75+ pounds of live rock to maintain one, but I'm assuming you could go much lower if you have a refugium full of pods...

 

[xNOTLOCx]

I Have succesfully kept one in my 30 gallon and he is doing great, it is 2 months away from a year of having him, i havn't fed him anything or added anything to the tank, so i have no idea where he gets his food. But needless to say i have a spare tank with cylclyed water and packets of baby mysis shrimp to hatch if he does stop staying fat, and as a back up my lfs sells pods, so i can pick some up, but i havn't seen any pods in months so I'm not sure really what he eats, since he doesn't come out at feeding time, but when i first got him he was very skinny, and his entire body was bent because his stomach was so empty, But he does love my freshwater 2.5 gallon with my ghost shrimp and my frog (not permanant) whenever i do a water change he flares his fins trying to get to either the shrimp or the frog idk why... I think it is a gamble, try to make sure you arent sending the lil guy to his doom... but they are beautifulAlso they may be cheap, around 18-20 dollars, but they are very expensive in the long run if you have a smaller tank, because when you "trial and error" you can blow a lot of money on different types of food, so try the most common first which is baby brine or baby mysis shrimp... then pods, I didn't read this entire forums so sorry if i missed any other examples on food !!!