Mandarin dead

saltwatersubie

saltwatersubie

Member
Bought a Mandarin today, looked in the tank with a flashlight and noticed he is dead. Water parameters are perfect and everything else is alive and happy. Anyone have an idea on why he might have died?? I have a 34 gal Solana with 2 ocellaris clowns and a sixline.
 
rlablan

rlablan

Active Member
WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!
If it is night time and your lights are out, they look like they were dead!!! They turn very ery pale and they don't move. Usually they sleep out in the open, and are very still, and seem lifeless. Don't flush him!!! Make sure he is actually dead! Wait until the morning!
I know from experience, mine looks like this EVERY night.
GOD I HOPE YOU DIDN'T FLUSH HIM!!!
** remember, things are not always what they seem in this hobby!
 
chrisnif

chrisnif

Member
Originally Posted by rlablan
http:///forum/post/3177956
WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!
If it is night time and your lights are out, they look like they were dead!!! They turn very ery pale and they don't move. Usually they sleep out in the open, and are very still, and seem lifeless. Don't flush him!!! Make sure he is actually dead! Wait until the morning!
I know from experience, mine looks like this EVERY night.
GOD I HOPE YOU DIDN'T FLUSH HIM!!!
** remember, things are not always what they seem in this hobby!

I'll second this, my Royal Gramma sometimes sleeps upside down, near vertal and loses all signs of life at night. I've even went so far as to touch him with my finger and he didnt move. He spent a night in a 20 oz cup in the tank (so the water didnt foul if he was dead, but he still had heat if not dead) because of his "show"
 
saltwatersubie

saltwatersubie

Member
I have not flushed him
I was hoping that he was sleeping but I shine the light on him and he doesn't move at all, I mean his gills aren't even moving. I hope that he is sleeping like you said.
UPDATE: I just looked at him again with the flashlight and noticed that his gills are moving slightly!!! That fish is lucky I didn't feel like digging him out to flush him.
 
rlablan

rlablan

Active Member
They don't move. Stop shining the light. That is VERY VERY stressful. Leave him alone, and let him sleep until tomorrow. Where he is sleeping is probably where he will sleep every night. Be careful not to stress him. They can be delicate.
Good luck and let us know tomorrow.
 
nicetry

nicetry

Active Member
Sadly, the fish will probably die of starvation within a month. Not only is your system much too small to sustain the live food source these fish require, you also have a sixline which will compete for this same live food.
 
jtt

jtt

Member
i got a pair of grade A picasso percula clowns, cost me a pretty penny too, they were almost snowflakes, sooo much white on them... anyway... the first night i put them in my tank, they didnt take to my food straight away, I thought perhaps they were still stressed from being shipped... Then 8pm rolled around and my lights turned off, an hour or so later i went to look at my awesome additions... and what did i see? a pair of grade A picasso percula (darn near snowflake) clowns, floating upside down, one got stuck against the mesh for the filter intake. I thought all that money went to waste, I even picked them up in my hand and they didnt flip or flap around, i swore they were dead. at that point I almost gave up the hobby, no joke, I thought that if I couldnt keep these awesome, amazing, beautiful fish alive, then I am DONE. My whole inspiration for being in the hobby were picasso clowns! and I spent a lot of money on an incredible, magnificent pair, and they had died.
I left them in the tank, thinking, 2 dead fish, 2 amazingly beautiful dead fish, 2 expensive dead fish. I dont care if leaving dead fish in the tank makes it crash, I dont care about the other tank mates, cause Im just gonna take the tank down tomorrow and part it out on craigslist. DONE.
Then the next morning, I woke up, walked over to the tank, and there they were, happy as can be. Turns out, they just slept upside down, while floating? and one of them "hosts" the mesh filter in his dreams, while upside down? oh well, they were alive and well!
 
V

vinnyraptor

Guest
been there ,lol. but you should take him back unless you can provide a steady supply of copepods or get him to take marine cuisine or mysis.
 
capt_ahab

capt_ahab

New Member
One of my favorite fish, but I cannot keep one. I have had a 35gallon solana for over 2 years and I still don't have cope enough cope pods...and probably never will.
Did you buy the fish from the same place you bought your tank? My local store would not sell me a mandarin because they knew it would be a death sentance Too bad they closed due to the economy. The other store I go to know is just interrested in making money, and would sell me anything I wanted if it will make them $$$. (shame)
I have also heard Mandarins can take like 6months to starve due to their low metabolism so don't be fooled into thinking its fine and healthy.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
you could keep the fish if you put a fuge in or if you planned on growing your own pods outside of the tank in thier own container or just dump in a jar of pods once a month and see if that keeps him fat. they are just like us you can see when they are well nourished and when they arent.
 
rlablan

rlablan

Active Member
I don't think it is a far stretch to keep this fishy alive if you know what you're doing. He should be fine as long as the owner pays attention and knows how many pods are there, and if the mandarin is happy, active, and nicely colored. They are not difficult to keep, but there are a lot of hobbiest who prefer a more "hands off" approach where they can take a 5 minute to look at their tank every day with their morning coffee and have very hardy, easily kept fish that can survive through turbulence and lesser water quality. The mandarin is not one of those fish. I look in my tank everyday and make sure that I can see at least 10 pods. The general rule is that for every pod you see, there are 100 that you don't. If I can't see 10 pods without having to hunt and really really look, I buy more. I have a sump and fuge, and tons of rock, with a DSB. I did everything I can to keep this little guy alive, and there are other hobbiest doing the same, because they have a love for this fish.
I often think people an here are too quick to jump and say "OH you can't have that..." without even really saying why. I think it would be more proactive to help that person learn, and give out more knowledge and help them keep this fish alive. If we are being disparaging, this people won't learn and will probably just keep the fish anyway. But moreover, if they do trade it back in, the LFS will just sell it to someone else with a smaller tank and no knowledge or access to great SWF.com knowledge.
Lets try to help instead of being negative and telling someone that this can't be done. I think that 20 years ago, people were saying that a reef in someone's living room can't be done... take a look around your home... What do you see? I see 2 reefs in mine, functioning just fine.

I am glad your mandarin is okay Subie. But all that being said up there is directed to you too. Make sure that you keep your water up, and really keep up on those pods. Having a smaller tank will make things more difficult with those pods, and a mandarin can eat his body weight in pods per day... (think about how small those pods are!).
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
My mandarin is in my 225G, and believe me...it has PLENTY of food
BUT GUESS WHAT.. One morning last week when I was feeding the tank....I saw the mandarin eat the frozen food....
I guess they can do what they want...LOL
 
J

jamie89

Guest
Has anyone had this happen with a longhorn cowfish? I got one from my LFS yesterday and he seemed happy until right after dinner he ate well with everyone else but later that night he started bumping into everything like he was mad and wanted out, I netted him and left I'm in quarantine for a few hours until he calmed down then let him back out thinking he just got scared about something. I checked on him through out the night and found him in various places through out my tank but never looked stuck. This morning i went to check again before work and found him at the very back under some of the rock work appearing to be dead, not moving not doing anything just sitting on the bottom, the tank has a natural eddy there and i know that when they are very stressed they can be very toxic, I thought the eddy had contained the toxin and he poisoned himself, now I'm thinking he was fine, but when i pulled him out to see if there was anything physically wrong with him, this fins and tail were stiff as a rock and his gills (or air holes in there case) were not moving, his mouth was wide open and his eyes were kinda glazed. Any thoughts? I really hate the idea that i may have flushed a still living fish especially something as cute as a cowfish!!!!
 
hunt

hunt

Active Member
First, welcome to the forum

second, cowfish cant poisen themselves, its there defense against predators. If its not reacting to you when you move it, its "stiff as a rock", and it isnt breathing, its prabably dead. The longer you leave it in your tank dead, the better chance there is of toxins from the cowfish killing everything. (they release toxins when they die).
Do you have any idea why it died?
EDIT: also, feel free to start a new thread, people on here tend to not like it when old threads are dug up and youll get more responses
 
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