six line wrasse or mandarin

fez

New Member
would the six line be more active than the mandarin? i'm looking for a lively fish too. I heard they will bury themselves in the sand. do they bury themselves for a long time or only at certain times (day or night)?
thanks
fez
 

wid

Member
one more thing to consider , my mandarin die during QT. (last few days of the four weeks period). Even through he ate some brine shrimp the first few days, then, i guess he prefer pod and their is none in the QT tank.
Wid
 

spicyballs

Member

Originally posted by fez
would the six line be more active than the mandarin? i'm looking for a lively fish too. I heard they will bury themselves in the sand. do they bury themselves for a long time or only at certain times (day or night)?
thanks
fez

the six line wrasse is more active.. the mandarin likes to rest on rockwork and hover rock work...
 

spicyballs

Member

Originally posted by FLATZBOY
balls is right. They are very fun to watch them pick at the liverock.

That's MR SpicyBalls to you.. haha just playing.. balls is fine...
 

gregvabch

Active Member
the sixline is a wrasse, so at night when they sleep they make a "cocoon" around themselves. it's a natural defense mechanism they use to hide themselves from predators. i don't know about the burrowing in the sand though. mine sleeps in different places every night, and always makes a cocoon which can be seen in the mornings floating around the tank before the scavengers find it.
like i said before, the sixline is the safest bet. a lot of people vote against getting mandarins because they are very finicky. like everything else, there are usually exceptions to the rule, but when comparing a six line wrasse to a mandarin, you would be better off getting the wrasse simply because it is more common for them to eat other foods besides just pods.
 

fez

New Member
thanks for the info...
six line is the fish of choice for now. if i ever set up another tank i'll make sure it has enough live rock to support a healthy pod population so that i can maintain a healthy mandarin.
 

iloveclowns

Member
i love both of them...just dont get both in the same tank......it doesnt work trust me.. my old mandarin didnt make it too long in my 37 with my 6line
now i have a new one in my 20x that used to have seahorses but they died, and she is really fat and doing well
 

nemo lover

Member
IMHO
If they have to compete for pods they'll prob starve. Thats why it is a good idea to keep only one fish whos main diet is pods. I know other fish will snack every once and again. But if the fish's main diet is pods only keep one unless you have a bigger tank or a fugie to aid in pod population.
 

gregvabch

Active Member
i still have a decent pod population in my 55 with the six-line in there. of course, i've also got about 100 lbs of live rock in the tank :D
 

mary

Member
Fez, Watch out for the six-line wrasse. Unless you tear your tank apart. you will never be able to get it. I can't get any lovely small fishes because he ort she terrorizes them until eventually they simply hide and fade sadly away. Their temperments are very agressive and they ar territorial. Stupidly I thought my first one was a fluke, but wow was I wrong. The first one died finally of old age and the second was given to me. I thought it seemed fine at first. It of course began to irritate my beautiful royal gramma until it hid and eventually died of malnutrition because the six line would not allow it to come out! The traps do not work for fish that are not drawn to chunks of meat., or algea. We put a mandarin in 1 year after our tank finally developed pods and other critters it needs to live on. Some hobbyiests new to the hobby get them and think they will survive on brine. Believe me they don't. They continually feed all day into the evening until the light goes out. You have to have lots of rock. My neighbor has a 55 gal. lots of rock, but 4-5 months after putting one in, it dstarved. Tank was simply not established enough. Mine is now three years in our tank and doing very well. I have approx. 1oo Lbs. of rock. Gobies, sand sifting gobies eat the same diet. Mine even ate brisle worms. Small ones. It was banded goby.
 

mary

Member
Fez, You must have very established rock fronm the very beginning. I have talked to many many people who put their mandarin in too soon, only to lose it. Is it the paisly green mandarin? You are extremely lucky.
 

gregvabch

Active Member
yes that was something i didn't think to mention about 6 lines. they will intimidate other fish, especially those that are smaller than them, if the other fish are passive or peaceful fish. i've got a yellow tailed damsel with it and my two gold striped maroons and they all get along fine; everybody knows their place in there. but they will bully other fish if the other fish let them. mine will flare up on the damsel every now and then, and the damsel does it right back to him, and that's the end of it. the clowns just chase him off completely. i guess if i had a fish in there that wasn't as bold then there would be a problem.
 

daredevil

Member
Sixlines eat pods? I thought they ate bristle worms and flat worms? If that's true then I don't want to get one cause I want pods.
 

yellowtail

Active Member
yes they eat pods because i see mine chase a few once i turn the lights on and he swims around with it in his mouth as to be showing it off to his tank mates. but to answer your question, yes they will eat those but no sure about the flaworms?:confused:
 

fez

New Member
what was a miracle???
I'm getting a sixline tomorrow from my LFS. said the sixline has been with other tank mates and has showed no aggression toward them. other mates were blennys...?
 

mary

Member
The miracle? That your mandarin is ok. Let me tell you you are the only person that I have ever heard of to have a surviving mandarin in such a small amount of rock. I need to read the forum agin. When they go after brine, they are really hingry.Maybe I have the wrong hobbiest? One of my neon gobies is very intimated by the six line, the other is bolder, but, I wish you good luck. It has always been fish that are territorial that will not put up with his antics that do not fare so well later on .It always wins its battles. It took about three months for its real temperment to show itself. My clowns won't take any s--- from it, nor would my tangs which are now in a much larger tank somewhere else. The larger sand sifting gobie ignores it. Why not a sand sifting gobie? They are entertaining and don't put up with anything. Sometimes they throw the h.crabs and p.shrimp around but never kill them. You can watch them catching the small pods from time to time. By sifting sand they get them also. I think you have made up your mind.
 
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