Need Fish Recommendation

[sen5241b]

I need a peaceful fish that won't compete with my Mandarin Goby for pods (Herbivorous?) I've given away a Blue Damsel and a Dottyback after they killed something else --no more aggressive fish.

 

[d2mini]

Blue Tang?

 

[sen5241b]

I thought about a baby blue tang but he would outgrow my BC29 in less than a year. I've looked at this quite a bit and it seems there is no easy answer here.

 

[simpleman]

How about:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1926+164&pcatid=164

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1926+173&pcatid=173

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1926+82&pcatid=82

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1926+85&pcatid=85

 

[dustin_P74]

anything on this list really or this one

 

[ZOOT098]

royal gramma
false percula

 

[Piggy]

firefish or wrasse

 

[Melonbob]

+1 on the royal gramma, or a purple firefish

 

[defcon235]

+1 on the royal gramma, or a purple firefish

Both are good choices. A goby would probably be fine as well.

 

[daugherty]

fire fish like to jump. i would do soe kind of wrasse. ijust not the sixline they are all to common

 

[Fastlight]

well I just got a royal gramma and it is beautiful....but the darn thing hides in the rock work(granted we only have had him 24 hours) So unless it becomes less shy its a fish you will hardly see. I also like the idea of a purple firefish(even though he might be a jumper)

 

[reeffreak]

The mandarin will out compete itself for pods in a 29g.That sytem just is simply not large enough to sustain a large enough copepod population.

I'm a little surprise no one has mentioned this.They are slow feeder with slow metabolism,it can take six months or more to starve.IME,a year in captivity is considered success.

 

[sen5241b]

I've really spent many hours looking at the Mandarin goby's diet and this whole issue with how to keep them well fed. Unless you have a 100G+ tank and 1 or 2 big fuges to breed pods you need to train the MG to eat enriched frozen brine & mysis shrimp --and it has been done. mofib has many examples of people training their MDs and keeping them over a year in a smaller tank -some smaller than mine. My tank already had tons of pods and he is already eating live brine shrimp. Now I have to just get him in the breeder net!

the method ...

BTW, this is a great website!

 

[ccCapt]

Mandarins,Psychedelic "Gobies", Dragonets, Scooter Blennies....YAH!Family Callionymidae by Bob Fenner
From the article.......
"Whatever other writers have stated, Mandarins almost never accept enough of anything other than live foods that are omnipresent in their system to sustain themselves. A nutrient rich live rock reef tank, read that as one heavily populated with hard substrates, with substantial interstitial crustacean and worm, and other small sessile invertebrate life of about 100 gallons will support one individual. And this assumes you have no similar food-competing tankmates."
and..
"So, let’s review. To successfully keep dragonets one needs a very peaceful, large reef system with lots of live rock and deep sand bed and/or such a system with a vibrant fishless refugium (highly recommended). Don't have this sort of set-up? Leave these fishes in the ocean."

 

[sen5241b]

This is apparently one of those ridiculously controversial subjects with marine tanks. At any rate, keeping MDs in small tanks has been done. One guy, who posted to mofib, kept and breed a pair of MDs in a 24G aquapod and they spawned on a regular basis. Yes, he trained them to eat frozen shrimp.

 

[ccCapt]

I don't think it's controversial at all. You will have the few scattered reports of people keeping them in smaller tanks, but that doesn't take away from the fact that hundreds, if not thousands die from starvation for every success story. It's pretty safe to say the success to failure ratio is not very good.