Anyone have or ever had a Mandarin or Dragonet fish????

Sxybeemr325

Sxybeemr325

Reefing newb
Hi,

Went to my LFS today. Seen 2 Dragonet or mandarin fish.... The look even better in real!!!!!!!!!! I remember seeing a pic of this fish in one of my books, but coudn't remember if it is a hardy fish, and the minimum tank size, and compatibility, as well as reef safe???? Anyone ever owned one??? Or does anyone have one??? how are they??? Would it be ok with my 2 clowns? 1 yellow tang? and my green serpent star? I also want to slowly add corals soon.... So NEEDS to be reef safe!!

Also wanted to know if i could add a powder blue tang with my yellow tang??? I know you are not supposed to mix up a tang with a tang. But they say that if they look different, they may be ok???!! Anyone every tryed it? Any toughts???
 
Mandarins usually starve to death in new tanks. Most will only eat live copepods and amphipods, so it's recommended that you have a refugium to keep a constant supply of food for them. They do not do well in new tanks and need established, stable conditions to survive so are not recommended for beginners due to the difficulty in feeding them. But they are reef safe if you want to get one further down the line. Sometimes you can buy ones that have been trained to eat frozen food, but they are harder to find.
 
Copepods??? Where do you find that??lol........... Amphipods??????? I guess I have none of that in my tank........

The other night, i was feeding my clowns, and i had thousands of small bugs in my water........ Do you know what it sould be??? it was on top of my water, moving so fast........ And it was the tiniest thing ever.........I started my power heads again, and I coudn t see them..........

What about the Powder Blue Tang? any toughts???
 
Yep little bug things are pods. But unless you have a refugium where they can breed, the mandarin will quickly eat all the ones that are in your tank and then starve. But, like I said, if you find one that eats frozen mysis you could think about getting one of those.

Don't know about the tang, hopefully others will weigh in here...
 
Hu,... but even then... how am i suppose to truct my LFS. of course they will tell me it eats frozen food!!!lol.... If i ask them to seed it frozen stuff. it should eat it right??
 
Madarins need well establish reef tanks with lots of liverock to do well.(6 months to one year).I keep a Madarin for 5 years in a 72gal and it did well.,at first it would only eat the copepods but slowly begin eating frozen brine shrimp and mysis shrimp.They are slower than more aggressive fish when it comes to feeding.They tend to look at their food before eating it.

Sorry,I never keep any tangs,my thoughts were that they grew to large for my 72/75 gal. tank.
 
Reeffreak, Well.... i have 140 Lbs of live rock in my 90 gallon.... So for the live rock, i suppose I have enogh.. but like you and biff said, if they need a "well established" tank, This might not be my case yet.... Ive had my tank running for about 2 months now... My clowns, tang and star are doing great.... but still, i's rather wait... i think they were selling the dragonet for $65.00 each.... So i rather wait until my tank is properly established.... Reeffreak, do you have any corals? Does he pick on your corals at all?

Anyhow, this is certainly a fish i might consider adding later on.... So cute!!
 
I have a scooter blenny (dragonet ) that I have had for about 2 months now.They are great little fish that love to hunt for pods but will also take what ever I feed my other fish.
But like Biff and Reef said its hard to find on that will eat frozen food.And if you dont have enough pods living in your tank they will starve.
Take a small flashlight with either a red lens or a piece of red plastic over the lens and look close at your rock after your lights go out at night.
 
Yote, like i was telling biff, couple nights ago, only my blue lights were on. And I shut off my powerheads to feed my clowns... Something happened (my phone rang I think) and was on the phone for a while. When i went back to my tan, a bunch of little bugs were on top of my water.. There was thousands of it!!!!!!! But like Biff said, i don t have a refugium, and the dragonet would probably eat it all and run out of it....

They just look amazing!

Any toughts on the powder blue tang with a yellow tang yote?
 
I dont have any experence with tangs but if it was me,I would just stick to the one yellow you already have.From what I have read the blues are a whole lot worse about getting ick at the slightest hint of stress.
They are a pretty fish though.
 
Oh,,If your wanting a dragonet,just have the LFS feed the tanks hes in and watch how he eats.
Also,if you have tight places within your rock and some macro-algae,you can keep alot of pods.They like to get down in the cracks and crevices in your rock work and under the rock and breed.
But on the other side of the coin,dragonets will eat massive amounts of pods.
I have my scooter in a 30gal with 35 to 40 lbs of LR,and I dont run a refugium.But I also made sure that the little gy was eatting frozen foods good before I bought him.
 
Yeah. the guy that i met at my lfs told me the exact same thing about the powder blue tang and ich. He told me that when you get a powder bliue tang, your chances from him getting ich is a 50%/50%!! I coiudn't beleive it..... But they are real pretty fish!!!
 
Well,,,I had some halmidea plant for a while in my tank.When I decided to take it out ,there were pods jumpping every where and I do mean every where. They looked like hundreds of fleas jumping around on the carpet.
If you decide you want halmedia be sure to check your calcium levels on a regular bases.
It will eat your calcium up real quick,that why I got rid of mine.I couldnt keep my calcium above 300ppm untill I took it out.
 
Hum.. well last time i checked my calcium, it was at 640 i think!! it was overdosing!!!!!!! lol.... I haven t checked it in about 3 4 weeks now. maybe i should give it a try and see if it went down...
Seems like I have the opposite problem, can t keep my calcium down!
 
Itd be worth a shot.Just remember that when its time to trim it back to turn your skimmer of for an hour or so because the juice from the plant will make your skimmer go crazy.
 

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