mandirians

[Quinn]

Originally Posted by reef_raf

What would you trust then? Personal experience? A fishie book? I think a survey of 40 or 50 mandarin owners would be a rather reliable source. Should I take mine back and trade for a book also?

sorry mate, didn't mean to sound hostile there. i'm just suggesting that i would rather follow the recommendations of the "experts" (grain of salt there, of course), who've spent many years studying these animals, versus a group of hobbyists, who mean well, but of whom many are making inferences and judgements based on flawed logic. i expect out of that 40 or 50 who responded (i am not familiar with this poll), a fairly high proportion are perhaps basing their logic on their relatively short time in the hobby, are attempting to justify their own keeping of the fish in such a small tank, perhaps for a rather short period of time, etc. unfortunately, it is adaptive for human beings to summarize and make assumptions - however this means that often, statistics are skewed and are based on shaky (content) validations.

let me assert that i have never kept a mandarin, and that i am very much a newcomer to this fine hobby as well. however i feel i have done a fair bit of research on dragonets in particular, largely due to my desire to understand why an individual i know managed to kill two in the course of a few months. i am basing my judgements completely on second-hand experience, the majority of which i feel to be the result of reliable and valid tests. that said, i would be happy to see evidence suggesting the smaller tank sizes mentioned may in fact be sufficient for keeping a mandarin for an extended period of time.