keeping a mandarin goby?

[shihtzu217]

I've had mine 4 months and he eats frozen brine like crazy, he seems fat and happy. No agressive tank mates either though.

He has as much personality as my Lawnmower. They kinda pal around and sometimes they look like they are playing peek-a-boo with me.

My Mandarin spends a lot of time poking around at the front of the tank but when I feed he has a couple caves that he waits in for the powerheads to blow the brine into for him to feast on. He doesn't really compete with anyone else for food. The other fish swim around and catch the food and he just sits in a cave and waits for it to come to him. I guess at 4 months maybe it's a little early to say but I think I gt very lucky on mine as he has grown a LOT and is pretty Plump so don't think he is starving.

[fatman]

That is quite possible. Consider yourself lucky though as most people see an obvious sinking in of the abdomen and sides of their Mandarins over a period of months and then death. When a Mandarin does eat prepared food it does have a good chance of survival as long as it eats a variety of foods, and it is likely that either the live food or the frozen food are making a mixed diet for the Mandarin. Most really healthy Mandarins come from tanks where phytoplankton is fed to the other tank inhabitants thereby essentially feeding food to the Mandarin's live food source, usually the levels of Mandarin food never reaches good levels without intentional efforts being made. For example others animals feed on the same things, like some Wrasses, Gobies, sea stars and others. Preferably you only want lifeforms in your gravel that eat detritus and bacteria if you have a Mandarin. There are tanks that are years old that have very little small life forms in them, due to heavy predation, no fresh inoculations and shallow sand beds. Some marine and reef book authors who stay very cuurent on reef and marine fish care say that a tank smaller than a 150 gallon tank should not be expected to support a Mandarin on a continual basis. Seems pretty extreme but they receive a lot of input from a lot of people with a lot of tanks, travel a lot, do a lot of research and make a living sharing their knowledge which is often proven by scientific methods and not just opinion based. But I have even read big blunders in print from Dr. Shimek, that have not been able to hold much water. Dr. Shimek is supposed to be the countries leading authority/researcher in regards to marine aquariums, marine fish and reef keeping.

[Toni White]

Ok. Thank-you for your quick replys. This is what I know. I once dosed the tank for flat worms all over the mushrooms and yellow toadstool. The yellow toadstool was big and a real joy. It went first along with a hairy toadstool. Then the two colts went along with xeonia, and xeonia had spread all over my rocks and was beautiful and in one night disappeared. The colt had started as on and grew on a rock beside it and split and I had two big colts.
My test strips show nitrates and nitrites to be fine. My husban and myself do 30 gallon changes quite often. By the way, I did a big water change 48 hours after the flat worm dose. My tank has never lost any fish except for a copperband that I had had for a good while. He was so cute and was eating. This was a very freindly fish. The mandarin picks rocks and sand. What is a pod? My other fish are this crazy Ruby clown that lives in a big live clam. He fans it and feeds it and is really agrasive if the other fish get to close to it's clam. The crazy thing lays in it! I also have a blue Hippo, a yellow tank, a queen angle, and this cool black and white stripped fish that I call Techo, because he looks like some technology from outerspace. Then the other two fish are solid yellow then solid purple. Sorry I don't know their names. I'm still kind of new at salt water tanks. I'm writing you from my computer lab, so if I don't answer I'm with the children or it's the week end. My home e-mail is .

[reeffreak]

Shihtzu,Since your mandarin is taking brine then switch out from time to time with mysis.Its more nutritious than brine.I agree with Fatman that variety is the key,I can't see a mandarin surviving for a long time on just one type of food.

Toni,pod is short for copepod which are very small crustaceans.They make up the diet of many fish including mandarins.

[Toni White]

Originally Posted by reeffreak

Shihtzu,Since your mandarin is taking brine then switch out from time to time with mysis.Its more nutritious than brine.I agree with Fatman that variety is the key,I can't see a mandarin surviving for a long time on just one type of food.

Toni,pod is short for copepod which are very small crustaceans.They make up the diet of many fish including mandarins.

reeffreak what do these small crustanceans look like? Can we see them? Toni

[reeffreak]

Yes,you can see them if you look hard enough.Most of them will be pinhead size to about a quarter of an inch,mostly white or tan in color.You may not see them when the lights are on.Many are nocturnal so poke around in dark with a flashlight.

[Toni White]

Originally Posted by reeffreak

Yes,you can see them if you look hard enough.Most of them will be pinhead size to about a quarter of an inch,mostly white or tan in color.You may not see them when the lights are on.Many are nocturnal so poke around in dark with a flashlight.

Ok thank-you. Do I look on the rocks in the sand? I guess they move?

[Toni White]

Also, how long do youwait after a coral dies until you can restock the tank?

[Oscarsdad608]

If you used a medication I would test for copper before putting any inverts in your tank. I had a friend with copper and some of his easier corals looked fine(kenya weed) and others just melted away.

[reeffreak]

Look around on the sand,the rocks and the glass.I find the glass the easiest to see them.Usually somewhere near the bottom or corners of the glass.Look for tinsy,tiny little bugs crawling on the glass.

I'm not sure what the flatworm medication contains.Am I right to think the medication is what killed the corals?My guess is to run lots of carbon for a month and then try a easy coral.See how it goes for a month,if it does fine then stock some more corals.