Mandarin Dragonet - Green

lovelife88

lovelife88

New Member
can two or more be put together??because i heard the males sometimes fight?
and to tell the difference...do the males just have a longer top fin? im just curious.
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
Two can be put together provided one is male and one is female. You can also put two together if they are from different species (i.e. psychedelic mandarin & mandarin dragonet). However, keep in mind that each mandarin needs more than 100lbs of live rock and WILL starve with less.
 
cubuffs

cubuffs

Member
I have 2 male madarin's in my 180 reef currently. They do fight every once in a while, but they cannot be without each other as well.
 
fishygurl

fishygurl

Active Member
you can have as many girls in there with or without a guy but you have to be able to have alot of food for them!
 
bojik

bojik

Member
Originally Posted by mudplayerx
Two can be put together provided one is male and one is female. You can also put two together if they are from different species (i.e. psychedelic mandarin & mandarin dragonet). However, keep in mind that each mandarin needs more than 100lbs of live rock and WILL starve with less.
UN TRUE i had one for a long time in a 15 gal. You just need to have a large population of pod's and mysis/and or a populated fuge attached. Also mine took to forzen brine well. Many from the LFSs in my area already eat frozen brine. This however might be an exception to the rule.
To --- the male has a spike kinda like a hifin goby on its front dorsal, the female does not.
 
mercury724

mercury724

Member
hi guys i just bought a mandarin dragonet, is it necessary for me to put the mandarin in the quarantine tank for atleast 3 weeks before introducing it to the main aquarium? but may quarantine tank does'nt have any live rocks in it would it be able to survive?
 
mercury724

mercury724

Member
Originally Posted by puffer32
No need to put in qt tank, mandrins aren't prone to ich, you can put it directly in your DT.
thanks for the info.
 
alyssia

alyssia

Active Member
Originally Posted by Bojik
UN TRUE i had one for a long time in a 15 gal. You just need to have a large population of pod's and mysis/and or a populated fuge attached. Also mine took to forzen brine well. Many from the LFSs in my area already eat frozen brine. This however might be an exception to the rule.
To --- the male has a spike kinda like a hifin goby on its front dorsal, the female does not.

Frozen brine has absoutely no nutrition value. Even if a mandarin will accept it he will still die of malnutrition.
 
travis89

travis89

Active Member
Originally Posted by psyparrot
In my lfs the mandirin sit in about 2 gallon tanks with no lr and they seem fine. Are they actually starving?
Yes unless they have all the tank tied together and they have lr in some of them, then they are getting some pods just a matter of how many.
 
bonebrake

bonebrake

Active Member
Originally Posted by psyparrot
In my lfs the mandirin sit in about 2 gallon tanks with no lr and they seem fine. Are they actually starving?
Yes, they are starving. It can take 3 to 6 months for them to starve to death. So even when you see the same mandarin in a tank at the LFS with no rock for a month he is dying slowly and living off his fat belly he obtained from eating to his heart's content in the wild before he was captured. If you have less than 100 lbs. of live rock per mandarin it will die. They eat so many copepods, isopods, amphipods, that without 100 lbs. or more of mature live rock per mandarin the pod population can not sustain itself with their appetite. One mandarin can eat half its body weight on more in pods per day.
As said before, it is completely worthless if they eat frozen/live brine because it has little/no nutritional value. A mandarin that eats only brine with die within a few months of malnutrition.
I have seen an adult mandarin starve in a 150 gal. with more than 200 lbs. of live rock over the course of a year. The mandarin was introduced when the tank was immature and had just finished cycling and the pod population was never able to reach its population maximum. The pods went all but extinct and the mandarin starved shortly there after.
 
hot883

hot883

Active Member
Originally Posted by mercury724
so is there any other food options that we could feed it with?
unforunately not. Thats why IMO they are best left for well seasoned large tanks. I wanted one for my 55 but from advice I gathered on here waited til I got my 125 up and running.
 
bojik

bojik

Member
Originally Posted by Bonebrake
Keyword: had
Which had numerous pods in it. and some mysis. Reason it isn't anymore was a cheap filter pump killing over and nitrates and what not spiking to hades and back [killed another fish as well]. Which happened when i was sick as a dog for a week. Didn't notice the filter was nearly dead. (practacly go to work barely make it through that and come home pass out for a week type sick.) Till then she seemed to be growing contently. And was eating mostly pods she just started taking the frozen brine shrimp as well. She went after some that was moving in the current and decided it was all edible after. *shrugs* Had her 8 months or so before the filter died. I put 'pod piles' of rubble and a sponge for them to grow in. She hardly put a dent in the massive number i seeded into the tank. That and i'd occasionaly raid some mysis off the LFS filters when i was helping out over there. She was the only consumer of the pods and mysis.
I've seen a single one kept for over a year in a 55 though they had massive pod population. Due to a fuge attached or just a good pile of rubble for them to breed in.(don't remember rightly) Not saying its a good idea or not. Just putting my personal experince and what i've seen out there.
 
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