mardarin in a 20gal?

[JasonJ]

k i guess it a no then
thanks ppl.

[saltynuts]

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[Pan]

Originally Posted by Bob I

I would advise against trying it. Mandarins usually don't eat prepared foods. They tend to live on things they find on live rock. Therefore it takes a lot of Live Rock to keep a Mandarin fed. You can't put enough lr in a 20 gallon tank to sustain a mandarin. Having said that I am sure some would argue that their Mandarin eats frozen food. I agree that some do, but it is the exception rather rhan the rule.

I know 4 people with mandarins in tanks less then 50 gallons, 2 with 20 gallons, one with a sump the other with no sump. All have had mandarins for years (same ones) all eat prepared foods (frozen). All were bought specifically because they ate prepared foods. There are always exceptions to everything.
That being said I wouldn't do it

[naesco]

Originally Posted by JasonJ

k i guess it a no then
thanks ppl.

Great decision Jason

[Funky_Fish14]

Ditto that, great decision.

I just got a sub-adult female mandarin 3 weeks and 1 day ago. She is not quite full sized, has about .5-1" till she will be full sized. She is in a 75g tank with about 45lbs of rock in the main tank, and a 23g above tank fuge that has about 30lbs of LR, and a massive amount of grape caulerpa. As some people have seen, I have ALOT of pods in my refugium. I have mysid breeding in there, as well as alot of zooplanktons, which top off all the amphipods and copepods in there. Due to the low amount of flow I have passing through there, and the fact that it is above the tank, it allows the live pods to gently flow down into the main tank below. She spends all day going about the tank picking at the rocks and bottom. She seems to have gained a little bit of weight. I am still concerned about the amount of pods actually in the main tank. I have planned on adding more rock to the tank for quite awhile, I have now decided that I since I found that pods like to hide in PVC piping, I will build a rack of half inch PVC, and add more rock. There will be about 60-65lbs of rock in the tank, and lots of hiding space within the PVC for the pods.

My mandarin has never had any interest in prepared/frozen foods yet.

Due to the fact that I am concerned about pod populations as well as many others with larger tanks, I very much agree with your decision not to get a mandarin for such a small tank. Better safe than never, right?

Cheers,

Chris

[Bob I]

Originally Posted by Subdued

I know 4 people with mandarins in tanks less then 50 gallons, 2 with 20 gallons, one with a sump the other with no sump. All have had mandarins for years (same ones) all eat prepared foods (frozen). All were bought specifically because they ate prepared foods. There are always exceptions to everything.
That being said I wouldn't do it

Yup, me too. This is my second Mandarin in a tank less than 50 gallons. My last one was a male that I sold to another reefer, and is still doing well. He ate frozen Mysis for sure. The current one is female, and she was quite small, and skinny when I got her. She has fattened up a lot, and is doing well. She is not out very often, so I have no idea what she eats. I still advise against it though.