Got my mandarin fish!!

[Gooseman]

hey thats an awesome idea i am going to have to try that ... maybe i can train my mandarin as well

[fatman]

For a rubble pile you can break up a base rock with a hammer, or even go to a garden store and ask for some lime stone rocks. They come in large bags for rock gardens planting borders and such. They are grey to white in color. Even marble rocks are easy to get and they are also white. They ewill cover with algae and coraline like everything else. Pods were likely still be in your tank if you had much algae. At least if there are any hiding places you probably will still have some. As long as they can feed they will multiply to fill the homes provided, meaning if they have places they will not be eatten they will populate those places fully if food is available. Phytoplankton can be purchased to feed plankton and filter feeders. Bottled and frozen phyto is reasonably priced. Try what you can afford to try if you really want to keep a mandarin, most peoples mandarins die before they ever start eatting dead food. If you can keep them a live long enough to get used to captivity with live pods, live rotifers, and live shrimp naupuli, then you have a good chance of their starting to eat frozen foods. Large LFS's in the states ought to have live rotifers and live naupuli are simple to harvest and there eggs are available at all pet strores, even Walmart. Do not try starving a mandarin into eatting dead foods as it will likely choose starvation. I find Mels ways often tacky but usually effective, but I normally have no other fish in my coral tanks and still can many mandarins to eat dead food. Perhaps the fact that they usually have plentiful live food is just reason not to eat dead food. Before I started feeding my SPS I could never keep a mandarin long term as they did not have plentiful live foods, and would not take dead food and they had no other fish in the tank then either. Usually my mandarins only stay in my tanks now for 6 months or so before going to a customers tanks. I definitly need to hang on to one and see how long it will live. I know several customers are at least two years old. They feed (now fresh, but for most of that time bottled) phytoplankton and rotifers to their corals.

[Sxybeemr325]

Here is my new little guy! My stupid pseudichromis is attacking him constantly! I have tryed to catch the pseudochromis (which i tought was a royal gramma when i bought it) since yesterday and I am unable to get him!!! As soon as I catch the pseudochromis, I'll return it to my LFS or flush him down the toilet!!! I hate this fish so bad! My fish will only use the right half of the tank, and my daredevil is potecting the other half! Constantly chasing fish around!! ANy tips on how to catch this daredevil?

[reeffreak]

Good luck with the Mandarin.I hope it does well for you.

Sorry,no clue on catching a Pseudochromis.

[RyanG]

Whats the yellow doo-dad in the pics with the mandarin? Gorgeous colors!

[d.french]

if any ever plans on adding a Pseudochromis it should be on of last fish in tank sometimes especially if you add new fish of same size cause they will freakin harass new fish bad unless it is a lot bigger in size. figured this out the hard way, but recently lost my purple pseudo in my large tank not sure what happen but it was in anenomes mouth one morning.

[hibye]

VEry nice pics. i like the first one cause it has a little duster and the sand .

[Bifferwine]

Beautiful fish, Sxy. I hope it does well in your tank too.

Ryan, that yellow thing looks like a piece of halimeda algae.

[Sxybeemr325]

RyanG, the yellow thing in e picture is some type of plant growing in my tank... Biff may be right about the name...

And thanx! I luv the mandarinfish... I just hope I can catch the pseudochromis!! That thing is evil!!!!!!! Absolutely evil!!!!! I had to learn the hard way as well Dfrench! I wish I'd wake up one morning and find it dead! It would be easyer then to try to catch it! And I feel bad about droping it back to my LFS. I feel bad for the next buyer of this evil fish! but Ill have to catch it first!

[d.french]

there not really evil fish i really love the pseodo's its just there like the watch dog in your tank and there great predator fish mine is always lookin for bristle worms. i was lucky enough to lose the one in big tank but my 75 gallon has one it is a springeri pseodochromis its all black with blue stripes on its face.