saving tatoo (our mandarin)

blennyluv

blennyluv

Member
Hi all
just to let you know that there is a place you can buy live pods in a bottle, its no links allowed . i was thrilled when i was informed of this sight, so i have a bottle coming, i am to pour half in the tank so tatoo can have his firs good meal in a month, and half in my quarentine tank to reproduce so i will have food for him. its a bit pricey but hopefully i won't have buy it again, so for anyone else who gets sucked in by stupid lfs owners and the beauty of this fish, i think this may be the solution. do male and female mandarins get along??? will my damsels be ok in the main tank with my other fish (lawnmower blenny, bicolor blenny, mandarin, blue tang, royal gramma, clown, yellow clown goby) the damsels are a very small 3 spot domino and a blue velvet.
thanks everyone
 
r. meng

r. meng

New Member
We have two mandarins in a 55....not something I would reccommend to anyone. They were a lfs rescue. These two are a bonded pair and have even started spawning. Amazing to watch. On the down side. They are really hard to feed and will clean out your tank in about a week. I live near the beach and had to resort to dipping pods out of the pacific, keeping them in an interim tank for a couple of days to warm up and then putting them in the 55. It takes a magnifying glass, a couple of fine mesh filters and algae to feed the pods. Our 55 is full of lr and we hung a plastic basket inside the tank, filled that with plants and the pods seemed to use that as a safe place. The only other thing to mention is that we do not have any gobies or true sand sifters in the tank, just shrimp, hermit crabs and snails (and a mantis that we are working on getting OUT). Growing the pods is not that hard, there is a book on clownfish that explains it really well, I think the author is Wilkerson? Good luck!
 
blennyluv

blennyluv

Member
hi, thanks for the info. i would be rescueing this little girl too, but i don't think i will. sad she keeps getting them in and noone in this little one horse town knows anythig about them, she tells them if they have live rock they will live. sucked me right in, that and the fact this is the most amazing fish alive. I do have a clown and a small yellow clown goby, i think i should dump the pods in my tank at night while they are all in thier holes. Essential live feeds is a small one person business. she was very helpful. i really hope more people with these mandarins can find her. anyway, the little female at the lfs is very thin, of course the pet shop owner disagreed and said she looks fine, but she doesn't . she has about 10 pounds of live rock in there. i have a couple of peppermint shrimp, a couple of brittle stars hermits snails etc. i also hatched some live brine to feed tatoo while i was trying to find him a home or figure out how to feed him, he really feasted on them. i didn't realize this was a really good thing to do at the time. so, hopefully we are beating the odds with our litte dude, the kids would be devastated if that one died, he is definitly a fav. could i hang small bits of algae sheets in the qt tank where i am putting my pods for them to eat???
 
r. meng

r. meng

New Member
The male and females are easy to tell apart, the male has a large "spike" on his top fin. Don't give up on educating your fish store person. We bought our mandarins (and a scooter blenny/mandarin) after convincing our lfs gal that it was going to be bad for her reputation if her fish slowly died from starvation after she sold them. Especially since all the books and info are very clear on the live food only for these guys. All three had been special ordered for people with 10 gal fish only tanks. Pictures of normal healthy fish compared to the mandarins she had were what finally resulted in the change in her policy. She now orders them only after making sure customers know what it will take to keep them alive.We supplimented with Brine shrimp about twice a week for the first four months but I hatched the bs and then fed a day later after they had been enriched by feeding them (the bs). If you send me your email I can give you a list of books and also the place I got my algae and rotifier/pod growing kits. I can still get stuff out of the sound but I am really concerned about introducing wild bacteria/or whatever into the tank. Is your mandarin male or female?
 
blennyluv

blennyluv

Member
tatoo is definitly male. and the one at the lfs is definitly female. i keep asking her why she is getting them in and telling her all the stuff they need to eat, and she just cares about making money i think, they have been trying to sell it (the store) so maybe thats why, her husband knows more, but all he cares about is selling fish. she convinced a lady with an 80 gallon, well, she bought an 80 gallon, NOT to use live rock to cycle her tank. now she has fish dying on her all the time, trying to put these tangs in and the tank is still trying to cycle. sheesh.
so you should feed the brine before feeding them to the mandarin?? course i think they (the bs)eat once they get in the main tank. i did this last week and i can still see some of the little buggers. if i am going to grow pods, cant i grow enough for 2(mandarins)? and then maybe she won't get another, we only have about 20 people with salt tanks, and my 55 is one of the biggest. i really hate to see the little gal die, she is already thin, i pointed that out, and of course the lfs gal just said she looks fine. she hadn't even looked at her enough to know it was a "her" i have 9 fish in my tank, not sure another would be a good idea anyway. these salt water fish are so tempting..........
oh yeah, should i put the pods inthe tank at night so the clown and goby don't eat them before they can get to the rock? they are little pigs
 
r. meng

r. meng

New Member
I feed the bs before I put them in the tank, hatch them, give them 1/2 a day to mature enough to start eating then feed .You can see their stomachs when the bs have fed. That way you are getting the good stuff into the mandarins. The food that bs will get in your big tank is probably not concentrated enough to make a significant difference to the tattoo and his girlfriend. I enriched the bs with marine snow, baby fish food, green water (algae-when I had it), and regular flake food that I pulverized into tiny bits, then I rinsed the bs and fed them to the big tank. In one week we saw a big difference in energy and all three fish started to gain weight by the second week. We also have a lot of fish in our tank......that's why we're adding 100gal soon.
 
r. meng

r. meng

New Member
Forgot to mention that I feed the tank before I put the bs in. That way most go to the mandarins, also I drip feed them in and put the end of the drip behind a rock so the rest of the gang has to wait. Good luck with the pods, it's not to hard, just fussy to do.
have you thought about starting a fish club in your area?
 
blennyluv

blennyluv

Member
never thought of it, could be fun, tatoo doesn't have a girlfriend, do you think i should save her???? i tried to send you my email address but this sight won't let me, so lets see if you can figure this out, it is (almonds at midrivers dot com)
hows that??
how do you get a club started?? i was thinking of taking some of my pods to the lfs to feed to the girly mandarin. i really want her, but thought i would see how successful i am with the pods first, got to get a bunch going, mine has lasted since nov 11 without them. they must be really reallly tough cookies.
i heard you had to have more than one female, if i DO give in and get this female, how do i introduce the two? tatoo pays no attention to any other fish.
i put my damsels in my main tank so i can put my pods in my 5 gallon, they seem to be getting along ok, i am sure the gramma and the bicolor blenny taught them the pecking order right away, the damsels are small, the 3spot no bigger than a dime, and the blue velvet is about 1 and a half inches, all my fish are bigger than they are. i would sure hate to try to catch them if they get mean. they are fast little suckers. where do you put the bs after they hatch?? just in a bowl or something?
 
r. meng

r. meng

New Member
Ours ignores the other fish in the tank also, that includes a flame angel, the scooter,one damsel, a firefish, two clownfish and a total of 1 coral banded shrimp and 4 pairs of misc shrimp, misc snails and hermit crabs(told you we are a little overstocked!). I just hatch my brine shrimp in a 2 litre pop bottle with a bubbler. works great, it hatches faster with a light on it (for heat) the bs start to eat about 12 hours after they hatch so I just turn the bubbles down a bit and add food, then siphon off the bs after they have eaten. No idea if that is how it is really supposed to be done but it seems to work just fine. If you get the female and she makes it you will love the way they swim together when spawning, amazing! I don't think you need more females, I read that more than one male will compete for the females attention but that the males will fight. Our pair seems really content as a couple and usually keep each other in sight.
Clubs are easy to start but watch out, they will take over all of your spare time! Just put a note in the fish store and maybe the local bulliten board with the time for your first meeting and a contact number. Set your club name, decide what you want to focus on and how often you meet, write that down in a spiral notebook (it's your mission statement) and you have a club!
We live on a small island and estimate 50 to 60 saltwater tanks here. Have'nt gotten organized yet but hey, that's what january is for.
 
blennyluv

blennyluv

Member
i have one of those little black boxes that are called shrimp hatcherys, my pods have not arrived, and are very late, i will be out of town tomorrow, hope fed ex will leave them in the door, if they are dead when they get here they will replace them, so just in case i started the shrimp back up, anyway, should i just put salt water in a bottle with spg same as my main tank and dump them in there as they hatch and feed them? should work one would think.
i would love to have that little female down there, they are $25 here, so taking the chance is a little pricey. i will keep my eye on her and if she gets much thinner and my food factory is doing well i will have to give her the old college try.
thanks for all your advice, you are the first positive one about mandarins so far!!
 
red2ubabe

red2ubabe

New Member
:help: My Beautiful Manderian is loosing weight, maybe no more copepods in my tank:confused: How can I get some????
Thanks so much:rolleyes:
Red
 
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