my new fish

[wood]

My first tank just got 7 new inhabitants, 2 large (3") coral banded shrimp, 3 turbo snails, a tiny 1" cowfish and a mandarin goby.

Now I'm new and just want to make sure its okay that I have not seen my mandarin since the split second i saw his body go from the plastic bag into the tank. Its been 2 1/2 days and there is no sign of him. I figure he must have made it through the acclimation since the shrimp made it. I did it in the dark over a 4+ hour period.

Also, I know the cowfish most likely will eventually eat my crustaceaons, but he has alot of growing before that ever happens. Plus I've read that if you start a cowfish this way (with shrimp much bigger than him), he may just leave them alone when he matures. Right now my snails are bigger than the cowfish!

Any advice on taking pictures of your aquarium, I think my issue is not enough backlighting coming through the aquarium. It comes out dark with no flash, and a big flash if I use flash.

[hibye]

what does the mandarin eat?

[daugherty]

hope it eats mysis or brine.

[wood]

I am aware of the fact that the mandarin goby eats pods, and i am working on this issue now. I have some harvested pods on order and may try to make a rubble pile. Hopefully he will eat brine and it won't turn into a big project. When I ordered the mandarin the website listed his diet as brine shrimp. He was on his way here before I learned about "pods." I am guessing this is the issue what you prodding?

[RyanG]

Yeah thats a cool fish but not so good in a new tank, brine shrimp have almost zero nutritional value either, better get some vitamin solution to soak them in.

[Doc]

you can buy brine shrimp enriched with spirulina, which is better for his diet. You can also try small reef plankton, which are WAY more healthy than brine and about the same size

-Doc

[wood]

Well the mandarin is still MIA for the time being.

On another note one of my coral banded shrimp already molted, but he appears to have lost a claw in the process. It looks like it stayed in his old skin. Will they grow back? He seems to be okay other than the lost extremity...

[Bifferwine]

Mandarins will usually starve to death in new tanks. I do not recommend putting mandarins in a tank that is less than 8 months old or in a tank that does not have a refugium to supply them with live pods. Since most mandarins will refuse any sort of frozen food, you need to have a consistent supply of live food for them, and they will deplete the pods in a bottle of live food very quickly. Not to mention, those bottles run $25 apiece.

Cowfish are also extremely challenging fish to keep. I wonder why you picked these two fish. Hardly anyone tries to keep cowfish because they are very difficult to get eating, and because they are toxic and can kill every other thing in your tank if they get scared or sick.

That being said, if your cowfish is eating, that's great news. And mandarins can also be very shy in the beginning, so it's not unusual to go a few days without seeing them. When I first introduced my mandarin into my tank, I didn't see her for 3 weeks. Now I see her every day. It can take a while for them to adjust.

Be careful of the coral banded shrimp. A lot of them are predatorial and will kill fish.

[wood]

I saw the mandarin today, just his head. I put some live brine shrimp in the tank today also. The cowfish still hasn't eaten but thats normal so far, I expect him to start soon. I'll keep posting about the mandarin and how hes doing. I am going to try to populate the tank artificially with pods and try to get the population ahead of what the mandarin will eat, eventually and hopefully they will be able to keep up a population. I have hope since the tank is big and there are a few spots the pods can procreate out of reach of the mandarin.

You say the shrimp wil eat fish, they don't seem to be bothering them at all so far and they don't seem like they would be fast enough or big enough to do any harm. Should I still be worried?

[daugherty]

my coral banded can be an ass he has taken a couple nips at my sailfin tang but the fins have healed but as it gets bigger it will get more agressive just watch it.