Blue Mandarin
 

So after reading about Mandarin fish and getting a pod factory going in my refug I got myself One. He is eating good , eats a pod about every 2 -3 secs.
On all the sites I found info on only one said that they are jumpers and I should cover my tank.
So I am wondering who has them and are you running an open top tank. Dont wont poor Houdini to jump ship. I know about egg crates and what not just dont like the look but will if they are jumpers.
Cheers

Cover
 

Its not uncommon to find them in overflow boxes.... so it is possible to see it jump out.

I've lost 2 so far carpet surfing. Never again!

Geez I don't think mine could swim fast enough to jump

you will be suprise... they can make a few quick dash... when I was moving my fish from biocube 29 to the 75g... I had tough time catching the mandarin... almost as bad as fire fish.

Yeah they're jumpers. When I was putting one into my tank the other night, the little bugger made about an 18" leap from the container I was acclimating him in to the tank as I was walk to put him in. Surprised the hell out of me!

That being said, I still have an open tank.

Mine is still a pretty small blue mandarin. I have found him in the overflow box once and he has taken the ride to the sump a couple times. I had to position a small sponge ontop of the overflow box as the eggcrate wasn't doing anything to stop him. Its hard to believe he could jump out but I think if he was riding a upcurrent and timed a quick dash right he could end up on the carpet.

Ok thanks all who responded !!
I am going to keep my glass lid thingy on until i get some egg crates to run along the top.

Open top here. I have 2 green mandarins, a male and a female. At first I had my male for 4 months in my 21 gallons, then I bought a female and for a month they were both in my 21 gallon so that the male would show the female how to eat frozen food and fish roe.

The 21 gallons is open top rimless and my 75 gallons is a Osaka open top rimless as well. Sometimes I see the both of them raise and twist in the water column spawning tummy to tummy, then they sort of move very fast un and then they go down again. At first I was afraid they would jump while doing that mating dance but they seem to be ok.

I have them for 8 months with open top. If they are not stressed and no other fish chase them around, I don't think they will jump.

The only time I am worried about this is when they are mating but they seem to know the limit.

I beleive that aggression or worse, lack of food could be the cause for them jumping out. If they are starving, it is very possible they want to jump on overflow or outside the tank in search of food.

Best is to keep them happy with fish roe and frozen bloodworm to make sure they have enough food on top of the pods. Mine eat the pods but they also eat frozen food and roe 2 times per day.

Like others have said, they are very good jumpers so the most dangerous part is transporting them. Mine jumped out of the aquarium when I was trying to catch it to transfer it to my 75 gallons so I picked the poor thing on the floor :( he was ok but that was very scary so be carefull about that. This is what made me realize that they have much higher risk of jumping if they are scared.

Nope think mine is too fat to break water