finally taking the great mandarin jump

pinky327

pinky327

Member
So its official I finally got my very first mandarin dragonet. I like so so many others wanted one the moment I laid my eyes on it well before I ever got my tank. But I had read all the very sad stories of them starving to death, so I never got one. But last year I started reading the few success stories. So first thing I found baby brine shrimp was a good option but they had to be freshly hatched, then I heard about prawn roe but sadly could never find a bag to buy. Then I found info on worms, and bought a starter culture online and have been struggling to increase my population to more than the size of like two thumb nails. But my success came last week when I was in Florida and I was able to get a few ponds of fresh mullet roe straight off the boat, so I sectioned it out into portions and froze them.

So here we are I saw this little girl on Monday and felt so compelled to buy her but I knew my best option would be to get a new one ordered in so it wasnt already starving to death. But they had her in the one tank with live rock to the max and I had In the past seen pods in there so I was hopeful, I went back two more days and finally broke down I just figured hey maybe it was meant to be.

Well after a lengthy acclimation process she is in a DIY holding tank that is in my main tank but lets me watch her eat and try training if necessary. She is currently resting on the bit of live rock I have for her, I put some roe in with her and a few of my dry pellets just to see but it was a long stressful day for her so we will start feeding lessons tomorrow!
 
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honu808

honu808

Member
Very cool. How big is your tank? How old is the tank? And finally, how much live rock do you have? I order live pods on another site and literaly have 5,000 plus living in my tank. Ive had my green mandarin for a month or so and is doing well. Thats not long enough to judge or boast success though. Good luck with the food training.
 
jacobsdad09

jacobsdad09

Member
I know some one asked but what size tank?

Personally, I know people who have had no success or haven't tried will argue otherwise, but large tanks are a terrible way to get these guys to be trained to eat frozen

I basiclly relate this to trying to fish a fish out if a tank....pretty easy to do in a 20 but in a 125 it is much much harder

Spot feeding in a much smaller tank w less stuff to steal food and try to get this guy in one spot is much more effective....

Things I've done that work is:
1)Zero flow when feeding,they don't chase they're slow eaters
2)Right foods! Mysis is too big to start, try nutramar or ova, cyclopeeze is an option as well
3)when u think they've got it, wait some more....when they get copepods they forget the training u gave them

Good luck
I'll see if I can find a pic or video of me training mine
 
pinky327

pinky327

Member
Oh sorry guys here I am making ya work for it lol. I have a 29 gallon biocube. I have a thread posted from when I first got it. But basically its been up and running for over 6 years. The past few it has been mine. I took out the crappy fake decorations and switched the crushed coral out for real sand and I started with about 15 pounds of live rock but have added a few more for my current aquascape. I added a cleanup crew and kept the two fish it came with a clown and a damsel... Then clown passed last year she hopped over the back into the middle chamber at night. Now I have tried every place and every person I know to give the damsel a new home my take is just too small. But sadly nobody wants him, and its shame he is really full of personality beggs for food eats out of my hand, I'm gonna miss him but I feel keeping him in such a small tank if cruel.. So we are in the process of catching him my last resort will be with a fishing hook so i hope he falls for the current trap but we will see how that goes.

Also throughout the years I have been adding pods I have a population of the smaller ones that you can barely see on the glass but the larger kind never really take hold. I believe that has to do with the lack of a real sump, it has the back chambers and I tried a underwater light with chato, but that didn't seem to help and the light upped my temp to 80 so I stopped that and just add the chato to the display. I have a lot of algae for most tanks. I personally like the look, and I stopped removing it when I decided I wanted the dragonet I know it will be a great hunting grown for her.


As for food the nutramar is the prawn roe I was talking about all online sourches have been out for a long time, something about the weather jacking up the breeding. So thats why I got the mullet roe it is a little larger but its a similar size to masago which is a caviar I read some people have used.

Thanks for the advice I didn't think they would forgot to eat the food after getting some pods again. I'm gonna do a diner concept i have a tiny glass jar, and when i get some brine hatched im gonna try a cool one i saw on a thread that is a sort of diner for the brine shrimp, and also spread some food on the rocks for her regular hunting habits

So basically I am gonna try every single thing I have heard works until she let's me know what she likes. But if anyone has other ideas please share!
 
jay0705

jay0705

Well-Known Member
You def have done your homework. In the pic she looks good, not starving. I have 4 mandys and 3 scooter blennys. Iam a draggonet fanatic lol.
Nutramar is excellent stuff, but indeed impossible to find recently.
I agree w jacobs dad also, it is easier to train them in a smaller tank,. I take this to the extreme I feed them in the bag. They are always hungry when first bought. I use spirulina brine shrimp. Then its a mix of mysis and brine. Slow feeders? Yes but not sloth like, mine work the water column picking food off as it moves in the current.
To start I would target feed her, where ev she is in the tank. Once u see her eat frozen, she knows its food just make sure u feed enough that she gets some.
 
pinky327

pinky327

Member
Thank you I have pretty much read every article about them that I could get my hands on. Im just really happy to have people who have them living and thriving to talk to and learn from. I didn’t even think about feeding her in the bag, but I do have her contained in a small floating mini tank I created so I am able to keep the food close to her and her up front so I can watch her.

So I have some good news it looked like she had ate some of the mullet roe I had left her, so I added some fresh eggs and watched like a hawk ! She does take her time looking around at every little thing, then she may just attempt peck here and there. But I watched as she made a lot of them at the eggs!!! I know that’s not the end of it but I am just happy I saw her eat something. So im wondering how much this little one should be eating throughout the day, I know I read they need to eat many times a day and essentially graze all day long. So im just guessing at this point and keeping her container full of food lol. I haven’t seen her attempt to eat any of the other types of food, live worms and dry pellets, but she is eating the eggs and from other threads the theory is that they have all these great oils and fats so she should be able to put on weight from them I hope!
 
jay0705

jay0705

Well-Known Member
Mine get fed the same as the other fish. Usually twice a day. She is eating so that is excellent. Pellets are iffy I had a green mandy and red scooter that would eat hikari marine s pellets but none of my current draggonets eat pellets that I noticed. I do feed new life now too so that could b why
 
smfoister

smfoister

Member
Love them. I just wrote another post on the new hobbyist forums to someone who is considering getting one. I have one that is about 10 years old, I have to move the tank he's in soon and my biggest fear is killing him, and/or the ecosystem that is sustaining him.

You'll do fine with him. People that kill them usually lack the knowledge and understanding. Enjoy!
 
pinky327

pinky327

Member
thank you everyone i really wouldnt know squat if it wasnt for this online community, and yay twice a day is what i have been doing so thats good news.

good luck smfoister i hope the move goes well!

so far so good she is still in my little dyi cage and im adding tons of eggs twice a day, i have seen her eating the eggs numerous times, but it still seems like she doesnt fully see them as food yet she will be on the hunt with eggs right next to her yet moves on and pecks somewhere else. but when i get home in the afternoon they are almost all gone so i hope that means she is eating most of them, some do escape but still im hoping its more her eating than them escaping. im not really sure how much she should be eating in a day so im still concerned but im happy to see her eating still.

i tried the white worms again she still showed no interest in them so i guess i have a little picky girl on my hands. i wish i had a local source for the california black worms i have read they stay alive longer which might get her attention better, but as of now im attempting to hatch my first batch of baby brine shrimp. this is take two as my first attempt with a cut soda bottle was knocked over by the cat... that was fun... so this batch is in a good solid mason jar, im sure this is gonna make separating the shells harder but oh well.

at this point im starting to wounder how long i should keep her in the cage, i was hoping to pump her full of foods so when she is let free she will have some experience with them and maybe want to go towards the diners. i just dont want to let her out and then her not want to go after the food.
 
pegasus

pegasus

Well-Known Member
Mandies are naturally hunter/grazers. Unless the dragonet is captive bred and/or raised, it can be difficult to train to eat processed foods. Not impossible, but sometimes difficult. The reason it doesn't show much interest in the eggs is because the eggs don't move like live prey, which triggers a feeding response. Live brine will trigger this feeding response, but brine shrimp is extremely low in nutrition. You can gut-load the brine with vitamins and fatty acids, which will help tremendously, but this creates an added expense. Copepods are it's primary diet in the wild, and one should do their best to create an environment that is rich in copepods for this delicate fish. It takes a large tank with plenty of live rock to achieve sustainable quantities of copepods. It can live quite happily on pods alone, but if pods are not doable, it will need a variety of processed foods in order to thrive. My mandarin ate pods exclusively for the first year, and never took a second glace at any flake, pellet, frozen shrimp, or any other food I put in the tank. It may have been coincidence, but when I switched to Cobalt Mysis Spirulina flakes about a year ago, it suddenly developed a taste for flake food. He'll graze for pods all day, but when I feed the tank, he's looking for some flakes! LOL!

I would recommend you keep her in the cage until you can observe her eating on a regular basis. Filling her belly and turning her loose in the tank could end in tragedy. She may eat as long as the food is close by, but then starve to death once she's released into the tank. Taking an occasional bite of something doesn't guarantee she will recognize it as food once she's in a large environment. You'll want to know for sure that she recognizes the food, because once they start to starve, it's virtually impossible to reverse it. Starvation is the #1 cause of death for the Mandarin Dragonet, so be patient and make sure she's eating before turning her loose in the tank.
 
pegasus

pegasus

Well-Known Member
Thanks, kopczynski. I only wish the picture would do him justice... his colors are actually much more vibrant that what you see in the pic. My G2 camera tends to mute the colors, especially the blue. I also have a YouTube video of this fish pecking copepods from the substrate... when he's not puffing up a me and the camera.
 
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pegasus

pegasus

Well-Known Member
Hmmm... now that you ask, I realize I don't have any threads on my tank. I may have mentioned it a time or two in some posts, but never actually wrote about the whole process. As anyone who's been doing this for any period of time will tell you, it's an ever-evolving process. My tank is nowhere near complete, and to be honest, I don't think it ever will be. I drool over pictures of corals that I know I probably will never buy due to my limited saltwater budget, but I never pass up a good deal, either. I guess I've done okay with what I've got, so I'm not complaining.
 
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