Mandarins in a Nano..
 

Interesting article.

http://joshday.com/mandaringoby.htm

Due to the heat on this topic, please forgive the following disclaimer. However, if you've ever had a passing interest in mandarins and possibly keeping one in a nano tank, you've no doubt seen the blatant hostility from all the nay-sayers out there. I've done a lot of reading about mandarin dragonets, and I've come to the conclusion it is possible to house them in a nano tank as long as they are given the right conditions.

As long as you go into it knowing theres a chance that the fish may never take prepared food's
and you may have to spend the next 15 to 20 years culturing pods for it.
In theory it should be doable

looks/sounds like he is slowly starving a mandrin to me.


Steve

I've kept a few mandarins in a BIG tank. The longest has lived about three years. And they eat a lot more than pods. In fact, I never really saw mine eat a pod. Pods move pretty freaking fast. He ate a lot of minute somethings from the rock, and definitely ate worms from the sandbed. You will notice fishbase has absolutely no information on the natural diet of mandarin dragonets.

I would tend to agree with that analysis. Let's take it a step further. I too have never seen my Mandarins eat pods. If indeed pods were their main diet would Mandarins not be nocturnal pod hunters when pods are active:question: If I take a flashlight to my tank at night, I see hundreds of pods scurrying around. However, the Mandarin is sound asleep. The Mandarin appears to sleep very soundly. He loses almost all his colour, and passes out somewhere.:confused:

yup, I flushed one as I thought it was dead.. all grey and molted looking:confused:

how ever I did see the little tiny pods it picked off the rock a few times.. I think by people saying Pods they are kinda generalizing and giving the impression they eat the big copapods the ones I saw you could barley see.

Steve

My blue pair (m&f) eat something that I can't see that is growing on the rock all day long. I too have not actually seen them eat what I would call "pods". However, they eat a lot and are looking healthy and whatever it is they are consuming often creates a smoke-like puff from their gills when they chew it. The article author said his eats once every 3 minutes, I would say with mine it seems more like every 20-30 seconds depending on where in the tank they are.

I've have kept quite a few mandarins... I haven't much luck with the splendidus ones. They are quite finicky although the closest I got to feeding one was hatching baby brine shrimps. It would swim up the sides of the tank and siphon them one by one.

If you gotta try mandarins, try the psychedelic kinds. They're less finicky from my experience, and the guy from King Ed's agrees. I bought one abt 8 months back...and he's still fat and happy. He was initially a little shy, but try warming him up with bloodworms. Then gradually, try brineshrimp. Now I have him on mysis. You gotta have the patience to try to place food in its path...and once you have gotten him used to a feeding space, when he sees ya in front of the tank, he will go check out the spot for food. I have my mandarin feeding off some flatter live rock near the top of my tank. Helps that my other fish are quite passive.

http://www.streamlined.biz/reef/IMGP0605.jpg

I have seen some pics of a guy who put sinking pellets into a small jar, and lowered the jar down as a "feeding station" for his mandarins. He always put the jar in the same place, and made the opening just large enough for the mandarins.

I believe that is Melev from Reef Central. The "feeding station" AKA the "Mandarin Diner"

Cool little invention. It was funny, I read back a few months ago and he had posted a little video of all his big tangs trying to get into this small jar trying to get at the pellets. Of course, other small fish helped themselves into the Diner. Pretty cool, (couldnt find the page for the vid)