Mandarins - Who has them?

[Zibba]

I've always thought that these were beautiful fish. I love both the green and the spotted mandarins, but knew that it would take awhile for my tank to mature and have a sufficient supply of pods for them to eat. Anyway. I was at the LFS the other day with my fiance and she thought they were "awesome" and asked me if we could get one. This is the first time that I've gotten the "green light" to make a purchase for my aquarium! LOL - it's a BIG step!

So for those of you with this beautiful fish - can you post some pictures please? Also, can you give me some advise on caring for this fish? How long has your tank been running before you added? does it take frozen food? Other tank-mates that you have with it....

Thanks.

[MNGold15]

Green mandarins I have never seen or really herd of for that matter taking to frozen food. On the other hand, In a peaceful tank with less ferocious fish I have seen psychedelic mandarins take to frozen brine. While I do not have very much experience with either of these fish, since I have never tried to keep one, they are beautiful fish, and I have always been interested in trying. Once I get me 210 up and running and once the system has been established for awhile and there is a very good pod count, I may end up trying one. But I would not try and keep one if your pod count seems low. So from what I know I believe you would be better off with a psychedelic.

[oyam123]

Green mandarins I have never seen or really herd of for that matter taking to frozen food. On the other hand, In a peaceful tank with less ferocious fish I have seen psychedelic mandarins take to frozen brine. While I do not have very much experience with either of these fish, since I have never tried to keep one, they are beautiful fish, and I have always been interested in trying. Once I get me 210 up and running and once the system has been established for awhile and there is a very good pod count, I may end up trying one. But I would not try and keep one if your pod count seems low. So from what I know I believe you would be better off with a psychedelic.

My little green is eating Mysis in the nano.

[redlion4]

We had one for nearly 2 years, brought in from Dr F&S. Never ever could get it to eat frozen food. I think he/she finally ate out the pod population our 55 gallon could produce or support. Was really sad "mandy" died :bawling: :bawling: . Vowed not to do another one unless I can confirm it eats frozen food.

Mandy's pic was my avatar on the old forum...I should copy it into here.

edit - avatar updated with the pic of ours.

[hypertech]

My little green is eating Mysis in the nano.

That is really a rare thing and I was SOOOOOO tempted when you posted him. But, I have my lighting upgrade to worry about and have a fish I ordered coming in today so I couldn't have him.

[wes]

yeah, and I've got next dibs if he's not taken by... was it brett? I've had my eye out for one that eats frozen for a bit now. We had one at Har mar that I got to take brine, but it was gone when I came back for it.

[mrbill]

I had a Green Mandarin male for several years (he was really more blue than green). Mine ate any food I put in the tank. He was a beautiful fish but the only time I would see him was at feeding and sometimes in the evening when the room lights were off and he would come out and display at his reflection in the glass. One day I realized he was missing. I finally found him in an overflow box. The overflow was covered so I have no idea how he got into it. Unfortunately by then he had lost a lot of weight and never recovered. I have not tried another one because I like to keep fish that are out and about so they can be seen. This photo of him displaying is scanned from a print so it not the greatest.




http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-1/1240673/mandaringoby.jpg

[sameyer]

I have a psychadelic mandarin for about 5 years now. I initially kept him in a 65 g tank (3 years) and have had him in my 215g for the past 2 years. In my opinion, the 65 was just enough to maintain a good source of pods; however, I always felt he was on the thin side. The 215 provides plenty of food.

In general, he stays in the rock structure so target feeding is difficult to maintain. I have seen him pick at some frozen brine, but I would not plan on that approach as a long term strategy unless you have a tank where the fish can be easily located and will take on the food without competition from other fish.

[storrisch]

there were a couple of good articles in Tropical Fish Hobbyist #611 on getting Mandarins to take frozen and target feeding them. Just an FYI

[oyam123]

If this is a GREEN, then I got the other type....the one thats Green in color.


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-1/1240673/mandaringoby.jpg[/QUOTE]

[Zibba]

Thanks for all of the responses everyone. mrbill - your mandarin is absolutely stunning - that is a great picture! My pod count is pretty high (my refugium is absolutely loaded with them), but I may wait a little longer just to make sure. I've also been thinking of getting a six-line wrasse, and I think that they compete for food, so we'll see. Just wanted to get some opinions before taking the plunge.

Thanks again.

[PLNelson]

I have a small spotted one. He was emaciated when I brought him home, but he's doing really well now.

[Goldpony75]

I have a male green mandarin and a red scooter dragonette who are both fat and health. my new tank has only been set up for 2 months but the rock has been in my system for 3 years.

[johnzillmer]

Here are some pics of mine:

http://www.msu.edu/~zillmerj/mandarin.html

That page was put up almost a year ago. Since then, I've gotten another S. picturatus, a female, who I have a bit of trouble keeping weight on (I suspect some hanky-panky is going on, and she's losing weight to eggs, since she'll get thin all of a sudden every once in a while).

Do check out the info on melevsreef on his mandarin, too.

[mrbill]

The Mandarins are one of of those fish whos common names are confusing. The Synchiropus splendidus is the species that I had. AKA: Striped Mandarinfish, Green Mandarinfish, and also sometimes the Psychedelic Fish. The name Psychedelic Fish is also used for a closely related species, the Picturesque Dragonet, Synchiropus picturatus. The Picturesque Dragonet/Mandarinfish are the green colored fish with the orange rimmed spots.

[this1fish]

well, i did an experiment a few months back with a target mandarin. In the wild, the mandarins graze a certain area for food during certain parts of the day. They also remember where the food are so they will constantly go back to that same area during certain times of the day. With this in mind, i tried a target mandarin being it goes in order from most likely to eat to least, scooter being almost 100% at taking frozen, target mandarin next and finally the green mandarin.

so with that, every morning i would put cyclop-eeze on a big rock on top, then in the afternoon on a rock to the left wall, then before the lights out, the rock on the right wall. I notice that after doing this for 2-3weeks, they would be at those locations every day at the times that i normally put food there. It took mine about 1 week to finally take a bite out of the cyclopeeze. I then slowly add mysis to the food mixture and it took some bites but it never swallowed. It finally did a week later though. I slowly introduce new food to the mix until it slowly took all the food i had to offer. I did it all in a 2months time.

the mandarin did gain alot of weight and was showing a massive improvement in health compared to when it was at the store. It did die though, I was getting ready to move the mandarin from the 5gallon that i had it in to the 15gallon i have currently. It apparently jumped out and i didnt notice....found it dried up a few hours later. Also, i found that the method does good to get it to eat BUT the ammonia,nitrite,nitrate sky rocket like crazy. If you have a bigger tank, you can attemp this. hope this helps.

[Zibba]

Sounds like you put in quite a bit of work for that guy. To bad he went carpet surfing on ya.

Unfortunately, I had to treat for red bugs so my pod population was been whipped out. I'm going to have to wait a few more months before picking up a mandarin. I've also heard that they do better in larger aquariums due to the increased pod population. Hopefully it won't take too long for my pods to rebound after this treatment.

Thanks for the input!

[hypertech]

I'm pretty sure your tank is plenty big for a mandarin - especially if you have a fuge hooked up.

Are you done with the red bug treatment now? Did your shrimp survive?

[Zibba]

I know that my tank is big enough for a mandarin. It would have been ready except for the treatment. I just finished up week two. One more week then I'm finished. Before the treatment, my pod population was really good in my refugium. It shouldn't take too long to restock.

No luck catching the shrimp. I tried a few more times, caught some fish - no shrimp.... He's still hanging in there though. Hopefully he makes it though the treatment. I'm going to keep trying to catching him before the last dose.

I'll give you back that cold pack tomorrow.

[hypertech]

I'll give you back that cold pack tomorrow.

Keep it. OD gave it to me when I bought some frozen food from them. I don't need it back.

[spectrum]

This is a site and they sell 200 pods for $9.99 plus free shipping i think. http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/product_info.php?products_id=2558&parent_category=4&category_search=63&root_parent_id=4

[Zibba]

Cool. Thanks for the link.

[lottie_pufferfish]

Personally, Its obvious to me that, if so many people failed at keeping this fish alive, then there is something that is not know. A fact, of some sort. And until some real biologist pin point the Exact reason, I don’t think anybody should get any fish from the genus Pterosynchiropus. Because its Doomed to die, no matter How old or large your system.

[spectrum]

its just mid-level care for the fish. The hard part is the food. it only eats pods.

[lottie_pufferfish]

its just mid-level care for the fish. The hard part is the food. it only eats pods.

Yes, they eat pods, But I beleive there are factors we don’t know.
Like perhaps: a key to longevity in the wild is due to an increased nutrients value in Pods in the spring months due to higher phytoplankton. (Making this up as example) and they retrieve vital nutrients during this period that will last them through the year until the next spring. Or maybe they are missing a key nutrient from our limited species of pods that populate the average tank. And no matter how large, or establish the tank, we have to addmit its not even close to the ocean they evolved to live in.

Im sure yall can argue that some fish have lower life expectences and some have higher ones in captivity. Dragonets, Only the strongest survive in the best of conditions, but almost all die of starvation.

[this1fish]

dragonets, scooterwise, i've heard and seen beginner people keep them for years. There's a newbie who has no clue that bought a scooter, his tank crash, he brought it in to donate at the store i worked at, it was big and fat for being in a small tank for 8months. Scooters are super easy to care for. every one that i have taken cared of ate frozen and gained alot of weight. It's the mandarins that are the issue. I have not seen very many success with them living long term in tanks. But if the scooter and the mandarin are related and the scooter can grow big and fat off of frozen, i don't see why the mandarin can't. The most cruicial thing is to get it to eat. Once it's taken to eating frozen, it may be one of the hardiest and easiest fish to care for.

[superman]

Yes, they eat pods, But I beleive there are factors we don’t know.
Like perhaps: a key to longevity in the wild is due to an increased nutrients value in Pods in the spring months due to higher phytoplankton. (Making this up as example) and they retrieve vital nutrients during this period that will last them through the year until the next spring. Or maybe they are missing a key nutrient from our limited species of pods that populate the average tank. And no matter how large, or establish the tank, we have to addmit its not even close to the ocean they evolved to live in.

Im sure yall can argue that some fish have lower life expectences and some have higher ones in captivity. Dragonets, Only the strongest survive in the best of conditions, but almost all die of starvation.

I believe it is simply a matter of pod population, most mandarins that die have a sunken stomache from lack of food. There are many people that have good luck with them in large systems, and an equal amount of people that have poor luck with them (usually in smaller systems and other competitors for food) I'm in month 4 with my two mandarins in my ~300 gallon system, one of them came back from the grave and is really fat, while the other is just mildly round. I have a 100 gallon refugium, and hope to keep these mandarins thriving!

[sea monkey]

This is a site and they sell 200 pods for $9.99 plus free shipping i think. http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/product_info.php?products_id=2558&parent_category=4&category_search=63&root_parent_id=4

200 pods isn't going to be enough food for one day. In fact i bet mine eats about 200 an hour. You can start the population this way but the chances are you already have thousands of pods in your tank and just don't know it. You could also get a ball of cheato from a club member which certainly has thousands of pods.

Going into it hoping to train them to eat frozen foods or purchased pods really is the wrong idea. Chances are they wont eat frozen foods and if they ever do it wont be for a long time. Im sure there is one in a couple hundred that does this but I have never seen one activity chase down prepared foods . mine will eat them "if" he just happens to stumble across a piece but he has no response to feeding time like the other fish do. I would not expect to get one that eats prepared foods as a mainstay of their diet.
Not to mention large frozen foods are not their natural diet and may be extremely hard to digest since they normally eat things about the size of a pin head. The goal should be to supply their natural diet and this is pretty easy. All you need to do is create a large safe place for the pods to reproduce in large numbers that is not accessible to predators, then wait a few months.

I personally have had very good luck with the CPR hang on fuge. It's particularly nice because it uses a gravity fed return so the pods don't have to make it though return pump. All you need to do is throw some rubble and cheato in there and spill over light is probably enough. I have had my mandarin for a couple years now and hes very healthy. At night with a flashlight, I can see softball sized swarms of pods swimming around , there must be hundreds of thousands of them .

[sea monkey]

Personally, Its obvious to me that, if so many people failed at keeping this fish alive, then there is something that is not know. A fact, of some sort. And until some real biologist pin point the Exact reason, I don’t think anybody should get any fish from the genus Pterosynchiropus. Because its Doomed to die, no matter How old or large your system.

this is not true at all, this perception is there because so many people give it a half assed attempt or just buy it hoping that they are going to get the miracle one that actively chases down frozen foods the day it comes home.


Id say out of all my fish this by far requires the least amount of care. I bet i could take a year vacation and come back to see ours still thriving. All it requires is a bit of planning and patience before you get one.

[lottie_pufferfish]

All it requires is a bit of planning and patience before you get one.

I Like this idea sea monkey. If only everyone did it before they bought one and wernt :hammerhead:

[sea monkey]

I Like this idea sea monkey. If only everyone did it before they bought one and wernt :hammerhead:

It's too bad that that people don't give it just a bit of thought. Mine is one of my favorite fish and hes requires no effort to take care of.

I wish more LFS don't took the opportunity to sell some rubble , cheato and possibly a fuge to people who buy these fish.