was told to stay away from mandarin goby????

[apham4]

hello. i was just chatting with my LFS dude and i had mentioned that i really wanted to get a mandarin goby, but he told me that i should definetly stear clear from this guy for the following reasons:

1) caught by means of cyanide, therefore destroying their natural environment

2) has deadly toxins in body that when dies, will release into tank

3) eats large amounts of copapods that aren't usually found in newer setups. will surely die within a few months which could result in #2 above.


is this correct? i really wanted to have one of these guys but from the reasons above, looks like i should stear clear. does this dude know what he's talking about? should i let the dream of keeping a mandarin goby slowly fade???


thanx.
A.

[KrakenSeas]

I know 1 & 3 are ture but im not sure about the toxin thing maybe some one else can help you with that one

[Niven]

I would like to email you an article by Terry D. Bartelme. very informative. What's your email address?
Niven

[Merlin]

I didn't know that 1 is true. I was under the empression that they were net caught mostly. They're slow, and they spend most of their time on the sand so they're easy to catch.

Anybody else?

Merlin

[Canadian]

All I have to say is Good on your LFS! LFSs that are honest and informative seem to be few and far between.

You'll read some information about training Mandarin's to eat prepared foods, and while this is a debatable possibility, your LFS made the right call by informing you of the inherent difficulties of Mandarin husbandry.

Niven, I'm assuming that the article you're referring to is the one in which Terry discusses training Mandarin's to eat prepared foods. I question the efficacy of the procedure but I'd like to put it to the test at the store. Could you please email me the article as well so I can apply the theories and see if I can't train a few Mandarins? I suppose it would be a lot easier on consumers if the LFS did the grunt work so that they could purchase trained Mandarins.

I guess I should add that I also disagree about their potential to poison a tank and that they are cyanide caught. But I will say that their husbandry requirements are a definite dterrent.

[Edited by Canadian on 03-23-2001 at 06:39 PM]

[billsreef]

Your LFS was right about #3, and that is reason enough to steer clear of a mandarin. Just plug mandarin into the RC search function and you'll come up with a wealth of info. TerryB's article is also an excellent source of info.

As for #'s 1 and 2, they are generally too easy to catch to be worth wasting cyanide on even for a cyanide fisherman, which fortunately are becoming fewer in numbers. Also I have yet to see one nuke a tank, so I have some doubts about the toxin thing.

[danman]

you might consider a green spot mandarin rather than the darker mandarin. The green spots stay smaller, so the problem of keeping them fed is lessened. I have one in my 20 and have had him for about a month now. He is doing well so far, but your tank should be established. I also dose alot of phytoplankton every other day and feed the other two fish in there.

I'll keep you posted on how he does.

[SueT]

Canadian, well said. Plus you have the best of intentions with this method of training them to eat before they leave the store. That said, my mandarin is 2 yrs. with me last December. It is over 4" in length and eats readily and will not let the other fish bully it out of the food. It was so emaciated when I got it for nothing. I was very surprised that upon feeding this tank for the first time since I had gotten the mandarin that it ate frozen brine and live brine shrimp. Then readily accepted mysis shrimp and now will take Lifeline green frozen food. Flakes when I toss them in for the tangs. That said, I think if I had known now what I didn't know then I would not make the same decision. I would not of got this fish, although I do think it's the exception to the rule. This tank is a 120gal. sps tank with over 200lbs. of LR, is heavily fed with DT's and Kent's phytoplex. There is a ton of pods as I watch them at night after the lights are out. The pods look like an ant bed after being stirred up.

check out my 120 sps tank:
http://suetruett.homestead.com/home.html
http://www.marshreef.org/members

[smokinreefer]

yeah, i disagree with #1 to an extent, some fish, not just mandarins are caught with cyanide. if so stay away from them. what i dont get is this, most of the time it is difficult to look at a fish and tell if it was caught with cyanide, so if your LFS guy knows it was, and is detering you from it, why does he order them? and if one of their fish is caught with cyanide you can be sure more of their fish are too, coming from the same supplier.

as for #3, you never told us your tank size, how old the set up is, how much live rock, visible pods and such. all these are important factors in keeping these types of fish healthy. and certainly as Canadian stated, if it accepts prepared foods, then you have no problems.

#2, just like everyone else...i have no clue! i think i remember somrthing about toxins in its mucus/slime, but not sure...nothing i would really worry about. unless it dies and you let it slowly disintegrate in your tank. i still dont think it would poisin your tank

sorry this is so f'n long. ;p

just FYI i have a 45 cube that has a rainfordi goby, 2 caribean saifin blennies, a lawnmower blenny and a flameback angel. the only fish i have to feed is my newly acquired flameback. all the other fish are fat and the tank provides them with all the food they need. i too am thinking of a mandarin as my last fish for the tank.

[Dwayne]

I agree with the responses to #1 and #3.

#2 IMO is hogwash. I had a mandarin die in my tank and noticed no ill effects. The cause of death was/is unknown, but it was dead. I believe the slime is toxic to other critters, wonder if it is only when they are living?

FWIW

Dwayne

[apham4]

my tank specs are 29 gal just recently cycled tank with about 22 lbs of LR ( will eventually have about 35 lbs).

as for my LFS dude, he doesn't keep them. i just told him that i was interested in keeping them and he said that i should really think about other gobies and not the mandarin (listing the above reasons). he doesn't carry them, and he won't order them in either. he's a big advocate of reef conservation and is overall, a very nice guy. the LFS store is owned by himself and is managed and ran by him and his little doggy with his little kitty and his little birdy.

thanx everyone for the advice and opinions. i think that it's best if i just back off on the thought of mandarins. too bad, they're such perty fishies.

=0Þ
A.

[billsreef]

Originally posted by danman
you might consider a green spot mandarin rather than the darker mandarin. The green spots stay smaller, so the problem of keeping them fed is lessened. I have one in my 20 and have had him for about a month now. He is doing well so far, but your tank should be established. I also dose alot of phytoplankton every other day and feed the other two fish in there.

I'll keep you posted on how he does.

Sorry to rain on your parade, and please don't take this as a flame.

But I doubt you'll be saying the same thing six months from now unless you take some serious steps to provide extra food and pods and stuff for your spotted mandarin. BTW there is not a significant size difference in the adults to make a real impact on food needs.

[OrionN]

danman,
I agree with Billreef. You only have your mandarin for one month. It take them much longer than that to stave. Your Mandarin will starve unless you can really provide it with additional food source. Twenty gallon tank is way too small for a mandarin unless it have a very thriving refugium. Maybe you get lucky and your mandarin will eat frozen food.

[vanguard]

Apham4,

You've received a lot of good advice from this board. It's a shame that some of the most compelling fish are often the hardest to keep. Every so often I do research on Moorish Idols and I learn that I should just stay away.

Here is a survey on mandarins. http://ozreef.org/reference/mandarin_survey.html

You should check it out. Pay paticular attention to the tank size. The best success rate is by far in the larger tanks.

[danman]

Thanks for the info on the green spot mandarin. I hope for his sake that you are wrong, but I will be sure to update you in 6 months either way.

Also, both of you mentioned taking serious feeding measures to help him out, but you didn't mention what to feed. I am growing my own phytoplankton and feeding regularly which I'm hoping will increase the amount of food naturally available to him. I also am feeding my own blend of frozen food to the other fish, which he may be eating, I'm not sure yet.

The reason I bought him was because the store he was kept in had mandarins alive in 20's and 29's for just under a year and looking very healthy. Granted, his tanks were well established and he was feeding phyto and frozen.

Nevertheless, thanks for the warning and I will let you know what happens. Any further advice is welcomed.

Dan

[wayne]

apham4, (and danman)

I would urge anyone with anything less than a tank with 100 pounds of liverock, and a decent level of Live Sand to stay away from the Mandarin Dragonette. The amount of LR is more important IMHO than the size of tank, to a point. The 'pods the Mandarins eat multiply within and around the LR. The 'pods are the food source for these animals. Once they have depleted the population of 'pods they will slowly starve.

With that said, I have a mated pair in a 180g tank. I have at least 250 pounds of LR and at least a 3" bed of LS. I also have an in tank Refugium (the pods also reproduce in the macro algae) that feed the tank. In my sump I have another stash of macro algae and a good supply of 'pods. These fish have been in this tank for well over a year. There was a time they were diminishing the 'pod population, and I knew this because they were no longer "dancing" their courtship dance. When I re-plenished the 'pods, the dance again became a nightly occurence. (As a side note, the Male has begun to eat flake food, but I've never seen the female eat any. I've not tried to "train" him to eat it, he just started on his own.)

As for poisoning a tank, I think this is urban legend material. It is supposed by some they are toxic to other fish if eaten, but I've never heard of them trashing a tank.

This is long enough, I hope you appreciate the great info others have offered and don't get a mandarin (psychadelic or green spot). When you've been in this addiction long enough and you have a tank with more than 100 lbs of LR, you will have gained more knowledge and perhaps reconsider the option of one of the most cool fish sold for aquariums.

hth
wayne

P.S. These fish are in the Dragonet family, Callionymidae, not the Blennidae, or Gobydae (sp?) Anyway, they are not Gobies or Blennies.

[Edited by wayne on 03-24-2001 at 11:40 AM]

[danman]

Thanks Wayne, for the warning I mean....I'm curious as to why to choose 100lbs of live rock as the minimum amount? Have you ever tried to keep the mandarins in a tank with less live rock? Just curious..

thats great that you have a mated pair. You also mentioned re-stocking your pods I think....Did you go out and buy pods somewhere? If so, where? And I may be wrong about this, but don't pods and other little critters feed on rotifers, which feed on phytoplankton? If so wouldn't dosing lots of phyto keep the supply of food for the mandarin up? Anyone know how fast pods reproduce?

thanks....I'm just trying to learn more, because I think there must be ways to keep them happy in smaller tanks. I've seen it done.

dan

[wayne]

Dan,
The 100 pounds is actually a number that kept comming up when I was researching the Mandarin. It probably has to do with enough surface are and hiding places for the "pods" to be safe in where the Mandarin can't get to them. Also, the breeding and offspring of the pods must be more than the mandarin can keep up with. If they delete the breeding stock, no amount of phyto will help

I bought my Male Mandarin when I had a 75g tank. But even in the 75, I had 125lbs of LR and a couple inches of LS. So, no I've never kept one with less than 100lbs of LR.

As for the restocking, I bought a breeding kit from Indo Pacific http://www.ipsf.com

I mentioned an in-tank refugium. What I did was to get a "breeders box" from the LFS, it has a slotted bottom and a lid. I drilled some extra holes in the box for water circulation and threw some calurpa in it. The 'pods breed like crazy, some of the calurpa grows through the holes and bottom, and the tangs feed off this growth. I thought it was a neat idea and I had not heard of anyone else doing it.

[smokinreefer]

hey guys,
yeah, i agree. the amount of live rock is very important and related to the amount of pods avaiable IMO and IME. just so you know, i have a ton of rock in my little tank. and it looks like just a big heap of rocks, but it is actually a very open design, lotsa water flow underneath and through the rocks.. plus i got a little refugium in my sump. which is below the tank, so i guess the tank recieves a little pod puree. I believe that is why i have good success with the fish i have.

[danman]

thanks wayne....the intank refugium is a cool idea. I could make it work well in my little 20 gal. I have rapidly growing kelp that I place to hide my pw's and other equipment...I could easily hide a plastic box in a corner...I'll look into the pod kit. What I was talking about with the phyto is not 'restocking' the pods with it, but encouraging them to reproduce. I may need to add more to start with as you mentioned. So, do you restock pods now, or are they reproducing sufficiently on their own?

Something that hasn't really been discussed either is the issue of other pod eating critters in the tank...if you have lots of other critters that feed off the live rock and the substrate then that would certainly affect the survival of a timid mandarin. but I don't have anything else like that in there.

thanks,
dan

[smokinreefer]

good point Danman. i have some fish that strictly eat what the tank can supply them with, though i feel my pod population is still thriving and beyond what any of my fish can deplete. i assume this cuz, my fish are healthy plump and i still have pods and such teeming all over the place. if i did not, then i wouldn't even think of keeping a mandarin.

as for your in tank refugium, i'd say go to your LFS and find some small pieces of LR that have a good diversity of life on it. huck those into your container, along with some macros, if you can get it all in there. as long as the box gets some light, you'll soon see all sorts of little things growing and multiplying in there. its amazing the kind of things that will start to grow if left undisturbed!

[danman]

Wayne, is the kit you refered to called the 'Amphipod Breading Kit".....for 29.95 ?


Is your in-tank refug. where you put the macro algae mat that comes with it?


thanks
Dan

[wayne]

Dan,
Excellent point on the other pod predators. You your going to try a Mandarin, unless you have a very large tank, you won't want any sand sifting animals, or any other type that feel off the small crustaceons.

I understood what you meant with the phyto, what I meant was if the mature (breeder) pods were already depleted and the pre-mature pods were being depleted, no amount of phyto would increase the breeding population. The appetite of the fish would outweigh the ability to feed the pod population to increase.