Mandarins

[greengalaxy]

Hey guys I want to have a mandarin in my tank, and I've been reading that they are very difficult to keep. Just asking for your guys experience and how you keep yours. Thanks

[Squishie89]

The bigger the tank the better, I personally would have the minimum tank requirement at about 40g for a single mandarin. These fish thrive on live food. They do not really have stomachs at all so they are grazing constantly. Most mandarins like to eat tisbe copepods. Lots of live rock to keep the pod population thriving. Tank should be as old as you can get it, with a dense population of pods, tank age 8-12months old. I feel one of the best ways to see if you have enough pods for a mandarin is if you see them on the glass and especially see pregnant females on the glass. One of the best, IMO, places for pods is through AlgaGen and also using the Copepod Blend food. I do not subscribe to getting mandarins on a prepared diet for various reasons, bottom line is it does not really work out, IMO.

 

Here is a bad picture of a tisbe copepod with eggs. Keep in mind all three of these photos were taken with a microscope lens for a cellphone, to the naked eye these guys are the size of a grain of rice cut in half.

And one without eggs (might be male, no idea how to really sex copepods)

And another with eggs

[rtelles]

If you don't have a large (90+ gallon aquarium, at the minimum), with lots of live rock and an established pod population, it's possible to keep them, but it takes a ton of work, is messy, and potentially expensive. 

 

It's possible to get them to eat prepared foods, but it's messy, and you have to do it multiple times per day, and even then, you should have a sizable pod population. I used newly hatched baby brine shrimp and a pipette to get the mandarin interested in the pipette, then I slowly added enriched brine to the pipette along with the bbs, then just the enriched brine once he figured out it was something he liked. Then he would eat pretty much anything I fed from the pipette.

 

The big issue (aside from patience) is that they're verryyyyyy slow, methodical eaters, so even if you get lucky and get one that eats prepared foods, or have put in the work to wean them, you still have to turn off all of the pumps, put the pipette right in front of their face, and release the food slowly so that they eat it. If you have any greedy fish in the aquarium, you either have to feed them first or off to the side. Even if you do get them to eat prepared foods, you have to have pods for them to graze on throughout the day, and if you don't have a large population already established in the aquarium, they're incredibly expensive to maintain. A mandarin will eat through a $20 bottle of pods in a couple of minutes (the point of the bottles is to start a colony in your tank, not as a regular food source itself). Again, even if you can get them to eat frozen foods, you have to feed them multiple times per day and still have a viable pod population. If not, they'll wither away over the course of a couple of months and die.

 

I kept mine in a 30g shallow frag tank with a bunch of live rock and a 20g refugium that had a sole purpose of being a pod factory, fed him twice a day with the pipette, and reintroduced pods into the 'fuge and in and around the main tank every few months, and he was a fat, healthy, spoiled, bold little dude. I ended up selling him when I downsized and he almost immediately died due to a parasitic outbreak in the new tank (they can, in fact, get ich or other parasitic diseases). I miss that little guy. Super cool fish.

[arking_mark]

Seasoned 34gal tank (~1 year). Target Mandarin (less picky eaters). Eats anything small you throw in tank...no special care. Very fat and healthy.

[rtelles]

Good point. I've had both spotted and green mandarins, and the spotted (target) mandarin was much easier to maintain and wean. The green mandarin took an inordinate amount of work, and got really big. 

[greengalaxy]

So will they just eat pods, or will they eat anything else? anything specific? 

[arking_mark]

My Target Mandarin hunts pods all day and eats all small prepared food (flakes, pellets, Rods, LRS, Mysis, Brine Shrimp, etc...). Not all Target Mandarin are this easy, and if buying from a LFS or WAMAS member, you should ask to see them feed.