Manderin Dragonets - who has attempted to keep these?

[zonkers]

My understanding is that brine shrimp have very little nutritional value, & should not be considered (even when soaked in vitamins) for long term feeding of Mandarins. Do not count on weaning it to prepared foods either. If it does, then fantastic, but be prepared for what hundreds (thousands?) of other aquarists have learned from experience-- pods, pods, pods!

 

[HisKid]

My understanding is that brine shrimp have very little nutritional value, & should not be considered (even when soaked in vitamins) for long term feeding of Mandarins. Do not count on weaning it to prepared foods either. If it does, then fantastic, but be prepared for what hundreds (thousands?) of other aquarists have learned from experience-- pods, pods, pods!

I agree, my mandarin is a sight to behold. I have a 90GAL with 125lbs of live rock. It really just loves the pods. If there is any 'secret' it is that you need a lot of live rock to keep these fish happy. I only have 1 in my tank. It is fat dumb and happy all the time. I never have a problem with it eating too much either, since there is about 1.25 lbs of live rock per gallon in my tank. It seems to eat day and night, so if you have 2 of them, they may need some extra food. They are slow eaters so they typically dont do well in a tank with high energy eaters, but try to feed them live black worms. On occasion, I feed them to mine for fun. *It looks like its eating noodles...lol*

 

[Anonymous]

As an aside, the pod eating tendencies of the Sixline wrasse are overstated much of the time on these boards. In a large enough tank, (say 100 plus) you can easily keep both species most of the time as long as you mind the refugium/live rock/rubble situations mentioned above.

Jim

 

[peterluber]

I've got to tell you-- call me silly, but its because of a Mandarin that I saw in a LFS shop that I took the plunge & went marine. I read everything I could on them & configured the tank with their care as the primary goal.
Pete

thats trippy my names peter also and i saw a mandarin at an aquarium and thats why i got into the hobby. wierd.