What about a mandarin?

[sduerk]

I know some people think that mandarins are difficult to keep and I am not disagreeing with them...I don' have one. Those of you that do...how do you know that your tank is mature enough to acquire a mandarin?

 

[toadbaby]

The general rule of thumb that I have heard is that your tank should be 6-12 months old. However, it depends on your tank and what you have in there. For instance, I have 130lbs lr in a 90 gall tank, of which, 80lbs was Florida aquacultured rock shipped overnight to me. It came in with so many goodies I put a Mandarin when the tank was a month old and he is SO FAT (tank is 3 months old now)! I also used some live sand from my lfs to 'innoculate' the tank and that probably helps. I have also heard that they will do better in a tank larger than 75 gallons

 

[fshhub]

you need a real strong pod population, give your tank and rock a good your to grow first, they mandarin and your tank will only benefit, and youreally really should have at least 75-100 lbs of lr too, because they can kill a pod population in almost no time at all, a much better alternative, just as cool (not as bright in color, but as cool) is his cousin the scooter blennies, they are both dragonettes, and the scooter could benefit form a good pod pop. too, but not nearly as critical(maybe a month or 2)

 

[adrian]

I tend to disagree that a scooter is any easier to keep than a mandarin. I have both a scooter and a mandarin, I got the scooter to eat prepared foods almost right away, the mandarin in my 55, dont flame me, the tank is only a month and a half old, with about 30 pounds of rock, is doing great and im concerned hes getting a little too fat. This tank dosnt have a tremendous amount of pods, but has a breeding population of mysis shrimp. I dont think tank size, amount of LR, ect. has as muc to do with whether or not you can keep a mandy, and more to do with the research you put into keeping one, experience, and fauna in the sand and rock in your tank. Having say 100 pounds of LR dosnt mean you have tons of pods, true they have more room to colonate, but that dosnt mean they will In the past I have kept two other mandys, one in a 29 that was established for 2 years and the mandy was fine for the entire time, until that is my top off system opened up and dumped a few gallons of fresh water into the tank, dropping the salinty drastically, and the mandy jumped, another I had in my 75 with over 150 pounds of live rock and it slowly starved to death According to everyones opinion the mandy in the 29 should have starved and the one in the 75 should have thrived Now Im not saying you should go out and buy a mandy, Im simply saying there are more variables that tank size and the amount of rock you have. HTH