psychedelic mandarin goby

[cardstars]

I recently purchased a psychedelic mandarin goby and when I purchased it I was told that it would eat off my live rocks. I just found out that it will eat off my live rocks but only for a short period of time. does anybody know where I can find some food for my new fish? any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[php]

mandarins need very good water quality because they are a delicate fish.They eat pods off the live rock and eat off the live sand. you need about 60-70 lbs of live rock.Nothingt else you can feed him that i know of

 

[wrassecal]

Yes mandarins eat pods but we need to know more info on your system to know if it will produce enough food. How old is the system? How much live rock? Do you have a refugium in your set up? I have 125 lbs live rock and I supplement my mandarin with live baby brine shrimp we hatch once a week. Hatch kit is cheap at lfs. You must strain the brine though lots of nitrates. You must feed within 24 hours of hatching time or they lose their nutrients. HTH

 

[cardstars]

i have about 30 lbs of live rock in my set up which is about 3 months old. and I dont know what a refugium is, can you explain that please? also what do you mean by strain the shrimp through nitrates? thanks for your help

 

[wrassecal]

Not through nitrates. I wrote though should have put a comma in there sorry. You buy a kit and your lfs should tell you how to use it. I use a coffee filter to strain all the water out of mine then feed it to the tank. The water you hatch the brine ine has high nitrates. Your tank is too new to support a mandarin. Also, I don't think you have enough live rock to keep the pod population up for one. They need an established tank with lots of live rock and pods. A refugium is a tank that you grow caulerpa in and pods and other stuff can grow and multiply in there and keep your supply up. I think you need to do a search on this board. Use the key word "refugium" and you will find lots of info. Also do a search using the word "mandarin" You will learn a lot about them. Good luck.

 

[dreeves]

They eat pods.
A suggestion would be to research any potential fish or otherwise, in which you may be interested in obtaining, online, or purchase a quality book.
LFS are in a business situation...most will tell you what you need to hear to get you to buy whatever it is they are trying to sale you. And allot of employees of a LFS are just that, employees. Some may not even own a fish tank, some are high school students trying to earn a buck.

 

[bobo]

i'd return the fish or find a better home for it if i were you. very rarely do you find one that will be kept alive just with live brine. 30 lbs of lr is not enough, and i think you need more than 60-70lbs of lr, its somewhere closer to over 100lbs of lr in very established tank where you don't have other fishes competeing for pods. your mandarin will more than likely starve to death within a month in a tank. i agree with dreeves. while lfs often carry mandarins and its often a very popular fish, it should not be sold to but the most experienced hobbyist with the right tank. but most lfs is out to sell their fish before they die in their own tank. in my opinion mandarins should not be sold in lfs at all...the majority of them just end up starving to death within a month in misinformed aquarists

 

[fishtanker]

my psychedelic mandarin also eats off the rocks, however he eats the frozen brine shrimp from my lfs as well.
really cool looking fish

 

[poiboy]

we have had our's (Spot) for a few months already. At first, we were a lil' worried cuz we lost our mandarin to ick, but he's doing really well. we hand feed Spot frozen brine shrimp, he also picks off the rocks too. Good luck, they are such great fish to watch.

 

[fishkiller]

I was thinking about getting one of these little guys. How long should a tank with about 50 lbs lr be established before putting one in there? I don;t know if Iwould ven be able to fit 100 lbs in my tank - 29 gallon. Would a DSB help?

 

[ozadars]

Fishkiller, i think if u can find a mandarin which eats frozen food and add 10more LR, maybe i can work if u dont have any pod eater fish and if yur tank is older than 6 months or better one yaear