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mandirians
my firends just bought a mandirian goby does any one out here have any advice? they have a 45 gal and there are tons of copods and all that and he sseems to enjoy eating these. just wondering what else they eat what they like / dislike
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A mandarin is not a goby. It is a dragonet. It is a common mistake to call them a goby however. This should help you do some information searches on line.
Which type do they have ? Pterosynchiropus splendidus or Synchiropus picturatus ? I am fortunate because my mandarin (Synchiropus picturatus) eats mysis, homemade food, even shrimp pellets, and had no problems feeding. Quite often, a mandarin is too far gone at the time of purchase and simply fades away nutritionally. They are continually eaters, and sleep virtually comatose, exposed and vulnerable. Fortunately, they have a toxic slime that is not palatable to some predators. I have yet to see a fish harass my mandarin dragonet. |
hrrrm it is mostly red and not green i dont know if this helps but it seems to be ok within 2 minutes of being let out of the bag it started eating copods
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apparently the vast majority of them never accept any foods other than copepods. bob fenner and the WWM guys feel that in any tank smaller than 90 gallons, a mandarin will starve eventually, as it will reduce the pod population to the point that there is no reproduction going on. they say that even in a 90 gallon, it is difficult to maintain a mandarin for a significant period of time.
obviously, see if it will eat any prepared foods. think about adding a fuge for pod production. to me this isn't a "well, let's keep it and see what happens". enough people have tried to keep these and failed. i know a local who just killed two of these guys in a row, trying to keep them in a ~50 gallon tank. they eat all day, and a mind-boggling amount of food at that. another case of beauty being a dooming quality. better left to those with the resources to properly provide for them. to reaffirm what deb said, they are neither a goby nor a blenny. there are apparently two types of dragonet, psychedelic and manderin. they are identical except in patterning. both are equality beautiful and equally difficult to keep alive. |
they are thinking about gettinga 33 gallon fuge would this produce enough ? and what foods should they try? nori mysis
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They should try taking it back to the store and trading it for a book.
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Scooter "blennies" are another type of dragonet that we get in this hobby. Starry dragonets are another(similar in appearance to the regular scooters we see). |
I read a survey/study on RDO or RC, forget which, that stated that a 40g tank seems to be the cutoff for survivability in mandarins. If you had a mature tank over 40g, your likelyhood was good in keeping one alive. This assumed no other competition for the available food.
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My mandarin eats 90 % pods. Every now and then it will eat the mysis that I put in the tank for my other inhabitants. Look into a refugium or pod piles if your friend wants to keep it alive. Unless they were lucky enough to find one that eats mysis on a regular basis. One in a million.
Chris |
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