Mandarin Goby-Anyone have one?
 

I want to put a mandarin in my tank and it will be the first fish in. Anyone have one now that can pass on any tips on their care and unique needs? From what i have read they generally just eat pods, not much prepared food. My tank has a ton of pods and i am putting a 'fuge in now to cultivate more. I have read that they generally don't do well in tanks under 75 gallons and mine is 41. What other fish do they get along with? I was planning on adding one clown and one bi colored blennie with the rest of the other animals just being corals.
thanks!

Don't have one yet (I actually have a pair on hold right now) but have been doing a fair bit of reading on them. Like you found they do suggest at least 75 gal. or more for a mandarin. It is also recomended to have a tank that has been established at least 6 months to a year to ensure a stable pod population. Pods tend to come and go in the first few months of setup. You also want to avoid other species that will compete for food so wrasses and some of the gobies are out. They certainly aren't recommended for beginners, but are sold all the time by LFS anyway:cry: The latest issue of Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) has an excellent article on Mandarins. Also read the "Mandarin Primer" thread on RC in the Reef Fishes forum (it's a "sticky" near the top).

What I am gewtting ready to do is try to train my mandarins on prepared foods based on write-ups from Matt Wittenrich who has succesfully bred them in captivity. He ensures all his stock feed on prepared foods. What he does is keep the fish in a net type breeder trap (found at your LFS) and feeds them live adult brine shrimp enriched with Selcon. Once feeding on those he starts introducing frozen brine. Once they start on those he immediately stops the live and feeds exclusively frozen. He then starts additions of other foods like frozen mysid and pellets as brine shrimp alone are not that great nutritionally. This is the approach I will be trying as although I have lots of pods in my system, I don't want to count on them alone to keep mandarins alive.

Just some thoughts, others that actually have them will certainly chime in.

I read the exact same articles! My tank is new (2 months) but the rock was from another established tank of 2 years. My pod population is so high i see them out scurrying around the rocks during the day. I dont believe that the clown will compete or the bi-colored blennie, but i could be wrong.

Well said Francis. If not willing to "train" your mandarin, you should make darn sure it is eating prepared foods before you add it to a 40gish tank. If the fish is not eating prepared foods, 40g worth of live rock will simply not support enough pods to feed a mandarin. The fish will likely wither away over a period of a few months.

I QT'ed a pair in a 20g tank for about 10 days, they were eating my DIY Frozen food and decapsulated brine shrimp eggs before I added them to my DT (180g with 65g sump and 40g frag tank with over 300lbs of LR in total).

i have one in a 45 gallon, with 2 clowns and 2 wrasse, bared and canary.

psychadelic mandarins
 

have a pair of mandarins in tank that eat pods all day and slurp up blood worms but won't touch mysis. not sure why but these fat and sassy fish have been with me for last 2 years. never tried training them to go on frozen diet but these guys just took to bloodworms like natural born worm hunters..

try feeding sushi roe

I have a 50 gallon display with a striped male and female dragonet. At one time I had 4 dragonets in the tank. My striped Male&Female and 2 other spotted females that I got from the the LFS because they were so skinny and I couldn't leave them:sad:. Once they had gotten nice and fat I found good homes for them (thanks seahorsefanatic). My secret is my 4.7 gallon hang on back refugium that is filled with cheato. I added about 4 bottles of tigger pods when I first put it on my tank(about 5 months ago). Now it grosses me out how many pods I have :lol:. When I trim the cheato pods are literally running up the scissors and onto my hands. IMO The #1secret to having Dragonets is pods and lots of em!!!!!!! Now my dragonets eat anything Mysis, Brine, even pellets but I have to turn off all of the flow in my tank and allow the food to fall to the sand bed. It took about 6 months for them to adjust to non live food.

I've got a male in a 90 gallon who chows down on frozen mysis and other prepaired foods. Every month or so I also add some pods to the tank because between the Mandarin and the Copper Banded Butterfly the pod population diminishes quickly