Please teach me about the mandarin goby

[BMW1600]

When I first set up my tank I had a goby (and a few other species) that died because of my impatience and stupidity.

 

I have had my tank running for over a year now, a lot more knowledge under my belt, and I'd like to try again. I'm worried about feeding, because all my other fish live quite happily on the simple diet I give them. I don't want to have to add something else routinely and make it a pain in the butt.

 

I have no population of pods in my tank. I guess my big question is, if I add them, what stops the pods from being destroyed/captured by a protein skimmer? (I don't have a sump.) What else could I feed a mandarin to keep it happy?

 

Thanks!

 

Dave

[Sharkey18]

If you don't have a population of pods in your tank you need to get a mandarin that is KNOWN to be eating prepared food.

 

Pods will live in your live rock, sand bed and often on your glass in places that aren't constantly being cleaned. You can add some to start a population however if you have fish that eat pods, (most will) it is hard to keep a high enough population in the tank.

[sen5241b]

I've had a lot of luck with Mandarins feeding them 3 things:

 

1 Ocean Nutrition's Marine Formula One Small pellets

2 Orange or red sushi row -- in the refrigerator section of Asian markets --Try H-Mart in Vienna near merrifield

3 Live bring shrimp enriched with Selcon

 

I've watched them quickly gobble these foods down. Turn off flow and drop the food over top the Mandarin.

[ridetheducati]

How much rock and how big is the tank? Anything smaller than a 75g will be challenging.

Edited April 24, 2013 by ridetheducati

[Muddy357]

How much rock and how big is the tank? Anything smaller than a 75g will be challenging.

 

Good question....

 

Also what other fish do you have in your tank?

[BMW1600]

I have a 54g bowfront. I don't know how many pounds of LR I have but it is a significant pile (to the point where I have considered removing some of it). I did an "emergency" rush transfer when I got the tank so I never had a chance to weigh it out.

 

I have one clown, one bangai cardinal, one pajama cardinal, one anthias, one red firefish, and one azure damsel.

 

If the tank is too small I'll forgo the mandarin. I just think they are beautiful.

[Integral9]

I kept a mandarin in a 55g with a 20g sump / fuge for several years. I had about 50-75lbs of LR. Fish included: coral beauty angel, scopas tang, black clown, green chromis, purple firefish and randal's goby. Also had a randal's pistol shrimp and a blue indian coral banded shrimp.

 

The fuge was a pod factory and my mandarin was never hungry. All fish will eat pods. It's like candy to them. imo: keeping a dragnet goby requires an established tank (1 year or more and stable) and a refugium for a pod factory. Otherwise, there is a very good chance the dragnet will probably starve to death slowly. Size of tank doesn't matter too much. They key is providing enough food for it as they are not competitive eaters (they will not get into the feeding frenzy with other fish) and prefer to only eat live food.

 

I also kept a red dragnet in a 29g with a 3g (iirc) hob fuge + protein skimmer for about 2 years. With him i had a naked clown, green chromis, griessingieri goby (flaming prawn)

 

imo: most important thing is to have a refugium to grow pods. I recommend seading the fuge with tiger pods or some other kind of live copepod product.

[smallreef]

You can get a hang on fuge to grow pods...but try getting them to populate your tank first.. Though the other issue I see is you have 2 cardinals which also prefer pods...so they may eat the majority of them...I have one Bangaii and a mandarin and they really work on my pod population...I add a new bottle of pods once every 4 or 5 months to help it out...(I have a 50g w/20g sump)

[BMW1600]

I am a little reluctant to get a fuge/any more hardware because I want to get a bigger tank in the next few months and I already have floats/HOB skimmer/Phosban reactor hanging off the back.

 

Can I add a bottle of pods at intervals? Maybe every two or three months? That would be far more manageable.

[nbgen12]

I would just wait until after your tank upgrade.

 

Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[paul b]

Mandarins are not like most fish we keep. Their digestive system is more like a seahorse or pipefish. They don't have a real stomach and can not store food as we, and most fish can. You can tell how often a fish has to eat by the size of it's mouth. A mandarin has a tiny mouth which is not designed to take a big mouthful of anything at any one time. They are also not designed to bite pieces off larger food items.

A mandarin was designed to eat pods and little else. We as aquarists tend to call anything alive, that we can't hardly see, a pod, but there are actual "pods". Pod is short for copepod but for our purposes we can call any small creature a pod.

Many animals in the sea were once pod size, and the young of almost everything we commonly keep in a tank, that hatched from an egg was a "pod" at the beginning of it's life. Of course if you keep Manta Rays or duck billed platypusses that does not apply. Well platypusses are a fresh water animal and they do lay eggs, (I think) and I know real ducks lay eggs but that is for a different thread.

Virtually all of the crustaceans we keep lay eggs but most of them hang on to the parent until they hatch, sort of the way Paris Hilton's dog hangs on to her.

But I digress. We all know that some mandarins will eat pellets and other commercial foods but this does not mean we can change the way it digests food. The short tube it has instead of a stomach has very little capacity to store food so it will get some energy from that meal but then be hungry for the rest of the day. A mandarin is an animal that was built to eat a "pod" every 10 seconds or so. Pods are small and mostly shell so they offer very little nutrition, but that is what that fish needs to eat.

To me, a mandarin is the easiest, least maintenance, most resistant to disease fish there is but it is also one of the fish that many people have so much trouble keeping for any length of time. I am not sure how long a mandarin is supposed to live because I am not the God of mandarin's but I have had many dozens of them. I find that they are accident prone and the first fish to find it's way into a powerhead when the screen comes off. They also swim up tubes and get stuck, but they almost never get sick and if you feed them correctly, you can't stop them from spawning.

Just today I saw a post about a guy who wants to keep one in a 5 gallon tank because he saw one in a 2 1/2 gallon tank.

Years ago they used to keep tigers in zoos in 5' cages. It can be done as you can keep a whale shark in a bathtub as long as his head is underwater. I am not sure how long he would live or what you would have to use to clean that bathtub with after it dies, but again, that is for another thread.

If you are the type of person that keeps a sterile, spotless tank, who goes to church to pray if you see a little algae or if you personally know Miss Hilton, then a mandarin may not be the ideal fish for you. Yes, you can keep one in that type of tank but that fish should live at least ten years and I can guarantee you it will not in a 5 gallon tank.

There will just not be enough real estate to grow enough pods, it is simple math.

You can of course teach it to eat pellets and throw one in there every ten seconds but sometimes your girlfriend may want to go out to dinner and have a nice glass of merlot.

In my tank there are plenty of pods and God knows what else so I can keep a pair of mandarins, scooter bleeny and some tiny pipefish that all eat pods, but I don't just want them to live, I want them to spawn, Why you ask? Because spawning fish are in the best condition, and if the fish is spawning it is extreamly resistant to "all" diseases and should live past it's normal lifespan.

There is a way to get a mandarin in this condition but it takes a little work and about $2.00 a month.

Luckily for us (and mandarins) brine shrimp are very easy to hatch and very cheap. A mandarin doesn't know a baby brine shrimp from a real Pod, and I think new born shrimp are vastly healthier. The reason they are healthier is because a real "pod" is an adult animal but a new born shrimp (or newborn anything) is mostly oil. A shrimp is born with a huge yock sack which is all oil. Oil has many times more potential energy than meat which is mostly protein. So for every baby shrimp a mandarin eats, it gets more energy. If you don't believe me, start a thread of your own and call it "Paul B is a crack pot and doesn't know a pod from a duckbilled platypus".

I don't keep platypusses, but at one time they were my favorite animal and I went looking for them in Australia. (I didn't find any but found something else, which is also for another thread)

Anyway back to baby brine shrimp. The problem with baby brine shrimp is that for some reason they like to have a tan so they are attracted to light, sort of like Paris. But the light always comes from above so they head to the surface.

Mandarins are attracted to pods and stay on the bottom. To remedy this, I built a baby brine shrimp feeder that is a simple device to keep the mandarin well fed by gradually distributing the shrimp near the mandarin. This is a simple plastic container with a fine mesh over it and a tube going to the surface. Every morning I pour new born brine shrimp into the funnel at the top of the tube and the pair of mandarins, scooter bleenies, pipefish and manta ray fry spend most of the day hanging out on ther mesh sucking shrimp through. When the shrimp are finished the fish go about hunting pods, but on every trip around the 6' long tank, they always visit the feeder to see if there is anything left.

As I said, it is simple to keep mandarins if you don't have a new, sterile or small tank but if you suppliment their diet "every day" with new born brine shrimp, they will live forever and if you have a pair, they will spawn almost every month.

I hatch shrimp every day in a shrimp hatchery and egg seperator, I don't know if they sell these but they are simple to make.

These are just thoughts and I hope it helps with mandarins or possably for the few that may want to try their hands with manta rays.

Here are mine spawning.

 

And hanging out at their feeder with friends.

 

[Huly]

Good read Paul! I was looking to breed copepods maybe I should look into brine too for my pair

[jaddc]

I'll add my two cents.

 

I have a fat healthy green mandarin, Target, in my 29 gallon. When you buy your mandarin make sure that it will eat frozen. Target (with a french accent) eats frozen mysis and brine. As for the pods, there are planktonic and benthic types. Mandarins enjoy the benthic type (e.g. Algagen's ReefPods Tisbe). I also get pods from Reefs2go (Pods2go on eBay).

 

If you make a pile of rubble or shells, then that makes a home for the pods to reproduce faster than predation.

 

Zooplankton eat phytoplankton. So dosing your tank with a phytoplankton will help maintain pod populations.

[AlanM]

A few lfs have Nutramar Ova, which mandarins supposedly like too.

 

[onux20]

 

If you make a pile of rubble or shells, then that makes a home for the pods to reproduce faster than predation.

 

Zooplankton eat phytoplankton. So dosing your tank with a phytoplankton will help maintain pod populations.

I agree with the rubble pile. I think you might be surprised that you do have pods in the tank. Agree to wait until after upgrade, plus some time to grow a healthy population.

[BMW1600]

Thank you all for the very thoughtful responses. I appreciate it.

[kjamaya]

Mandarins are not like most fish we keep. Their digestive system is more like a seahorse or pipefish. They don't have a real stomach and can not store food as we, and most fish can. You can tell how often a fish has to eat by the size of it's mouth. A mandarin has a tiny mouth which is not designed to take a big mouthful of anything at any one time. They are also not designed to bite pieces off larger food items.

A mandarin was designed to eat pods and little else. We as aquarists tend to call anything alive, that we can't hardly see, a pod, but there are actual "pods". Pod is short for copepod but for our purposes we can call any small creature a pod.

Many animals in the sea were once pod size, and the young of almost everything we commonly keep in a tank, that hatched from an egg was a "pod" at the beginning of it's life. Of course if you keep Manta Rays or duck billed platypusses that does not apply. Well platypusses are a fresh water animal and they do lay eggs, (I think) and I know real ducks lay eggs but that is for a different thread.

Virtually all of the crustaceans we keep lay eggs but most of them hang on to the parent until they hatch, sort of the way Paris Hilton's dog hangs on to her.

But I digress. We all know that some mandarins will eat pellets and other commercial foods but this does not mean we can change the way it digests food. The short tube it has instead of a stomach has very little capacity to store food so it will get some energy from that meal but then be hungry for the rest of the day. A mandarin is an animal that was built to eat a "pod" every 10 seconds or so. Pods are small and mostly shell so they offer very little nutrition, but that is what that fish needs to eat.

To me, a mandarin is the easiest, least maintenance, most resistant to disease fish there is but it is also one of the fish that many people have so much trouble keeping for any length of time. I am not sure how long a mandarin is supposed to live because I am not the God of mandarin's but I have had many dozens of them. I find that they are accident prone and the first fish to find it's way into a powerhead when the screen comes off. They also swim up tubes and get stuck, but they almost never get sick and if you feed them correctly, you can't stop them from spawning.

Just today I saw a post about a guy who wants to keep one in a 5 gallon tank because he saw one in a 2 1/2 gallon tank.

Years ago they used to keep tigers in zoos in 5' cages. It can be done as you can keep a whale shark in a bathtub as long as his head is underwater. I am not sure how long he would live or what you would have to use to clean that bathtub with after it dies, but again, that is for another thread.

If you are the type of person that keeps a sterile, spotless tank, who goes to church to pray if you see a little algae or if you personally know Miss Hilton, then a mandarin may not be the ideal fish for you. Yes, you can keep one in that type of tank but that fish should live at least ten years and I can guarantee you it will not in a 5 gallon tank.

There will just not be enough real estate to grow enough pods, it is simple math.

You can of course teach it to eat pellets and throw one in there every ten seconds but sometimes your girlfriend may want to go out to dinner and have a nice glass of merlot.

In my tank there are plenty of pods and God knows what else so I can keep a pair of mandarins, scooter bleeny and some tiny pipefish that all eat pods, but I don't just want them to live, I want them to spawn, Why you ask? Because spawning fish are in the best condition, and if the fish is spawning it is extreamly resistant to "all" diseases and should live past it's normal lifespan.

There is a way to get a mandarin in this condition but it takes a little work and about $2.00 a month.

Luckily for us (and mandarins) brine shrimp are very easy to hatch and very cheap. A mandarin doesn't know a baby brine shrimp from a real Pod, and I think new born shrimp are vastly healthier. The reason they are healthier is because a real "pod" is an adult animal but a new born shrimp (or newborn anything) is mostly oil. A shrimp is born with a huge yock sack which is all oil. Oil has many times more potential energy than meat which is mostly protein. So for every baby shrimp a mandarin eats, it gets more energy. If you don't believe me, start a thread of your own and call it "Paul B is a crack pot and doesn't know a pod from a duckbilled platypus".

I don't keep platypusses, but at one time they were my favorite animal and I went looking for them in Australia. (I didn't find any but found something else, which is also for another thread)

Anyway back to baby brine shrimp. The problem with baby brine shrimp is that for some reason they like to have a tan so they are attracted to light, sort of like Paris. But the light always comes from above so they head to the surface.

Mandarins are attracted to pods and stay on the bottom. To remedy this, I built a baby brine shrimp feeder that is a simple device to keep the mandarin well fed by gradually distributing the shrimp near the mandarin. This is a simple plastic container with a fine mesh over it and a tube going to the surface. Every morning I pour new born brine shrimp into the funnel at the top of the tube and the pair of mandarins, scooter bleenies, pipefish and manta ray fry spend most of the day hanging out on ther mesh sucking shrimp through. When the shrimp are finished the fish go about hunting pods, but on every trip around the 6' long tank, they always visit the feeder to see if there is anything left.

As I said, it is simple to keep mandarins if you don't have a new, sterile or small tank but if you suppliment their diet "every day" with new born brine shrimp, they will live forever and if you have a pair, they will spawn almost every month.

I hatch shrimp every day in a shrimp hatchery and egg seperator, I don't know if they sell these but they are simple to make.

These are just thoughts and I hope it helps with mandarins or possably for the few that may want to try their hands with manta rays.

Here are mine spawning.

 

And hanging out at their feeder with friends.

 

 

It would be great to see this tube that goes to the surface....

[paul b]

Edited April 25, 2013 by paul b

[paul b]

Video When I got her she was very skinny here

Edited April 25, 2013 by paul b

[AlanM]

I love this feeder and the video and if my wife allows me to raise baby brine shrimp I'm going to have one in my tank. I'm putting bookshelves around the tank, so maybe I can put a false front of books on it and hide it somehow. Wonder if I could do that with a black worm farm too and feed the worm farm our old Trader Joes bags, hmmm.

 

Like Huly said about Pez in a different thread, I love how mandarins look and low they move around. They are definitely one of the fish that I'd love to be able to keep, but I don't want to do it if it's not going to have fun in my tank.

[sen5241b]

On many occasion I've watched MDs eat bristle worms.

[Orion]

Bringing this old post up because I keep seeing people feeding mandarins frozen food. They need to eat pods, plain and simple. I have a scooter dragonet in my tank, and while it will eat a piece of frozen food occasionally all it does (and is designed to do) is eat pods all day. That, and sleep under sand bed at night.

 

Mandarins are not like most fish we keep. Their digestive system is more like a seahorse or pipefish. They don't have a real stomach and can not store food as we, and most fish can. You can tell how often a fish has to eat by the size of it's mouth. A mandarin has a tiny mouth which is not designed to take a big mouthful of anything at any one time. They are also not designed to bite pieces off larger food items.A mandarin was designed to eat pods and little else. We as aquarists tend to call anything alive, that we can't hardly see, a pod, but there are actual "pods". Pod is short for copepod but for our purposes we can call any small creature a pod.Many animals in the sea were once pod size, and the young of almost everything we commonly keep in a tank, that hatched from an egg was a "pod" at the beginning of it's life. Of course if you keep Manta Rays or duck billed platypusses that does not apply. Well platypusses are a fresh water animal and they do lay eggs, (I think) and I know real ducks lay eggs but that is for a different thread.Virtually all of the crustaceans we keep lay eggs but most of them hang on to the parent until they hatch, sort of the way Paris Hilton's dog hangs on to her.But I digress. We all know that some mandarins will eat pellets and other commercial foods but this does not mean we can change the way it digests food. The short tube it has instead of a stomach has very little capacity to store food so it will get some energy from that meal but then be hungry for the rest of the day. A mandarin is an animal that was built to eat a "pod" every 10 seconds or so. Pods are small and mostly shell so they offer very little nutrition, but that is what that fish needs to eat.To me, a mandarin is the easiest, least maintenance, most resistant to disease fish there is but it is also one of the fish that many people have so much trouble keeping for any length of time. I am not sure how long a mandarin is supposed to live because I am not the God of mandarin's but I have had many dozens of them. I find that they are accident prone and the first fish to find it's way into a powerhead when the screen comes off. They also swim up tubes and get stuck, but they almost never get sick and if you feed them correctly, you can't stop them from spawning.Just today I saw a post about a guy who wants to keep one in a 5 gallon tank because he saw one in a 2 1/2 gallon tank.Years ago they used to keep tigers in zoos in 5' cages. It can be done as you can keep a whale shark in a bathtub as long as his head is underwater. I am not sure how long he would live or what you would have to use to clean that bathtub with after it dies, but again, that is for another thread.If you are the type of person that keeps a sterile, spotless tank, who goes to church to pray if you see a little algae or if you personally know Miss Hilton, then a mandarin may not be the ideal fish for you. Yes, you can keep one in that type of tank but that fish should live at least ten years and I can guarantee you it will not in a 5 gallon tank.There will just not be enough real estate to grow enough pods, it is simple math.You can of course teach it to eat pellets and throw one in there every ten seconds but sometimes your girlfriend may want to go out to dinner and have a nice glass of merlot.In my tank there are plenty of pods and God knows what else so I can keep a pair of mandarins, scooter bleeny and some tiny pipefish that all eat pods, but I don't just want them to live, I want them to spawn, Why you ask? Because spawning fish are in the best condition, and if the fish is spawning it is extreamly resistant to "all" diseases and should live past it's normal lifespan.There is a way to get a mandarin in this condition but it takes a little work and about $2.00 a month.Luckily for us (and mandarins) brine shrimp are very easy to hatch and very cheap. A mandarin doesn't know a baby brine shrimp from a real Pod, and I think new born shrimp are vastly healthier. The reason they are healthier is because a real "pod" is an adult animal but a new born shrimp (or newborn anything) is mostly oil. A shrimp is born with a huge yock sack which is all oil. Oil has many times more potential energy than meat which is mostly protein. So for every baby shrimp a mandarin eats, it gets more energy. If you don't believe me, start a thread of your own and call it "Paul B is a crack pot and doesn't know a pod from a duckbilled platypus".I don't keep platypusses, but at one time they were my favorite animal and I went looking for them in Australia. (I didn't find any but found something else, which is also for another thread)Anyway back to baby brine shrimp. The problem with baby brine shrimp is that for some reason they like to have a tan so they are attracted to light, sort of like Paris. But the light always comes from above so they head to the surface.Mandarins are attracted to pods and stay on the bottom. To remedy this, I built a baby brine shrimp feeder that is a simple device to keep the mandarin well fed by gradually distributing the shrimp near the mandarin. This is a simple plastic container with a fine mesh over it and a tube going to the surface. Every morning I pour new born brine shrimp into the funnel at the top of the tube and the pair of mandarins, scooter bleenies, pipefish and manta ray fry spend most of the day hanging out on ther mesh sucking shrimp through. When the shrimp are finished the fish go about hunting pods, but on every trip around the 6' long tank, they always visit the feeder to see if there is anything left.As I said, it is simple to keep mandarins if you don't have a new, sterile or small tank but if you suppliment their diet "every day" with new born brine shrimp, they will live forever and if you have a pair, they will spawn almost every month.I hatch shrimp every day in a shrimp hatchery and egg seperator, I don't know if they sell these but they are simple to make.These are just thoughts and I hope it helps with mandarins or possably for the few that may want to try their hands with manta rays.Here are mine spawning.And hanging out at their feeder with friends.

[gmerek2]

It seems They love that food machine. This needs to be manufactured for consumers to buy.

[sachabballi reef]

Bringing this old post up because I keep seeing people feeding mandarins frozen food. They need to eat pods, plain and simple. I have a scooter dragonet in my tank, and while it will eat a piece of frozen food occasionally all it does (and is designed to do) is eat pods all day. That, and sleep under sand bed at night.

 

 

Gotta agree with both of you...

 

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