I must of hit the holy grail too, I have had 3 mandrains and all of them ate mysis and one ate pellets. The 1st one died at 5yrs old (the guy I got him from had him for 3yrs and I had him for 2yrs) the 2nd one from marine velvet and the 3rd is alive and well in my tank and will actively go after mysis, saw him take a piece from my blenny.

What kind of blenny do you have fishoholic i have been thinking of getting a mandrian but just worried about my horseface blenny picking on him

Bandit if you go through the the thread and meet the requirements for their care you should be alright. The lawnmover blenny is an algae eater and the yellow goby easily eats mysis and other dead food so there will be little competition.

I have a tail spot blenny. However I have had other blennies in the past and they have never picked on my mandarins.

From my experience and from what I've heard the only thing that will pick on a mandarin is another mandarin, also the one eb0la11 has is the 1 out of 3 mandarins that I've had that wouldn't eat frozen, also these fish have been successfully bred in captivity although not commercially which I believe to be a positive sign, I think many mandarins CAN be trained to frozen if the time and effort are put into it, but it is a combination of stubborn fish who won't take it and the intimidation of the work required to train them which can sometimes take monthes that puts alot of people off, but in my opinion it's worth it for the awesome lil guys

haha this sure is a good way to open a can of worms though! Ah just for the hell of it let me stoke the fire a little more:
-tangs do fine in a 20g
-moorish idols are great little beginners fish
-(for those with skimmers) skimmers are useless you don't need em
-(for those without skimmers) skimmers are necessary you are horrible fish keepers

now to sit back and watch the controversy begin!

LOL troublemaker!
if you have a tang in a 20g. you will never have to worry about hair algae!!

Sounds about right :wink:

I agree with what you said about mandarins though, I don't believe there is much out there that will pick on them. There coloration seems to work well as a defense system. Even my lionfish won't eat one :mrgreen:

who needs a 20 gal tank.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/crystalk/tangcube.jpg

Steve

... Oh my! That raises so many questions...

But I believe part of the mandarins defense is that their thick slime layer is rather nasty tasting or potentialy poisonous, so I propose an experiment: everyone with a mandarin please go lick your fish and relay back to us how it was... If I never hear back from anyone I'll assume they are indeed poisonous and will be over to steal your choice frags shortly

It's the coloration, in the ocean bright colors mean poisonous or bad tasting which protects the species. Sea slugs use the same type of defense.