AndrewT Posted December 14, 2008 Share Posted December 14, 2008 how hard are they to acclimate and keep? I picked one up yesterday and by the evening he loooked like he was gonna croak. Haven't seen him today. All my others are great and the gobie I bought yesterday looks fine too. Water parameters are all bueno what gives. Could I have just got a bad fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsr Posted December 14, 2008 Share Posted December 14, 2008 They are pretty hard to keep unless you have LOTS of pods in the tank. That is their natural food source. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted December 14, 2008 Share Posted December 14, 2008 Like the moorish idol, they are considered dead fish swimming. There seems to only be about a 5% rate of survival of these beautiful, way to cheap and over collected, fish. I wish these things were $100 so people might think twice about buying them, it works on blue spot jawfish. Generally it is assumed that they need about a 100g tank without any sort of natural copepod predators. It is very rare that they begin feeding on frozen or prepared foods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewT Posted December 14, 2008 Author Share Posted December 14, 2008 Update: the mandrin lives! I just now spotted him he seems well I have tons and tons of pods in my tank so I'm sure that he'll have ample food. I have a coral beauty, two anthias two clowns and a neon gobbie. Are any of these fish a threat to the madrins food source.thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewT Posted December 15, 2008 Author Share Posted December 15, 2008 also how can I insure that he'll have a steady source of pods. Do the reproduce fast in a tank. Someone had said dosimg small amount of phyto in the fuge would help. Any truth to that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted December 15, 2008 Share Posted December 15, 2008 All of your fish would be considered pod predators. Keep them well fed on other foods and they may choose not to eat pods. keep a lot of chaeto in a nice sump and they will reproduce quickly in there. From time to time take the chaeto to the tank and shake it to release pods into the tank. It is well known that a mandarin tends to quickly deplete a tank of pods. The best tricks I've heard of include adding live pods or brine shrimp into a small glass bottle that only the mandarin can fit into. Drop in an area the mandarin inhabits and see if it will begin eating in there. If so then begin adding frozen mysis or cyclops (actually you can order live mysis from a place in Florida, expensive), into the bottle with the live food. After a few weeks you may be able to only place frozen into the bottle. Good luck. With much patience and a healthy fish you might be able to do it. I was able to get 4 blue ribbon eels to eat frozen silversides. Not an easy task at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewT Posted December 15, 2008 Author Share Posted December 15, 2008 thanks guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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