Green Mandarin Question

[rdnelson]

Going to be a long ways down the road but.......

I plan on having a Green Mandarin at some point down the road. I understand that most will eat nothing but pods (although some will eat prepared food). My question is, how do you QT a mandarin? I don't see many QT tanks having a population of pods. Am I over thinking this or just missing something?

 

[fidofence]

You have to buy them, it is my wife's favorite fish but I have to buy pods weekly to keep him alive. I have three wrasses and they are pod pigs

 

[KrisDeitz]

I don't qt my dragonetts. To delicate for me

 

[eagle9252]

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">I have 2 dragonetts. </span></span>

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">The psychedelic one eats small pellet food. I think it’s the formula one with a blue lid. Have not seen him eat any other food but did eat off the rocks when I first put him in about 6-7 months ago. Now when I feed the tank he will come to the edge of the rocks and wait for some of the pellets to float by and suck them up. </span></span>

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">Now for the green target. He only eats pods best I can tell. He’s been in for about 3 -4 months. You can grow them in your fuge. I made a pod condo to transport them. All it is is some plastic gutter guard and made a tube and put some LR rubble in it. It stays in the fuge. Every couple of weeks I’ll pull it out and move to the DT next to some LR close to lights out time. This way the pods have time to move out of the condo. </span></span>

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">The gutter guard will protect them until they leave. You will have snails and crabs all over it. My target would also just sit and hover it like he was waiting for the doors to open on the day after thanksgiving sales “open, open, open”</span></span>

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Verdana">HTH</span></span>

 

[chris s]

I'm with the others on this. Buy pods for the QT period. My Green Mandarin only eats pods and he is fat and happy. Of course he is the only real pod eater in my 120.

 

[frantz]

I have two and didn't QT them. You could always shop around until you found one that would take prepared food. My larger one will wait for the tweezers when I'm feeding my sun coral

 

[rdnelson]

I am hoping that while my tank has sat fallow for the past 4+ weeks (and another 2-3 before I start stocking) my pod population has grown. But, I have never seen any. I seeded with some pods a few months ago and I do have a good ball of macroalgae in the fuge but.......

The only fish that made it through my catastrophy was a yellow choris wrasse and I do plan on getting a Solarinsis Wrasse so I am a bit concerned that the population may not support one. It is a 125 with just over 100lbs of rock. Guess I will just hav to wait and see.

 

[ralph atl]

They'll eat nutra-ovar, then you should be able to get them over to pe mysis from there. or just don't buy one that doesn't already eat frozen.

 

[jef4y]

Ralph, to add a +1 to what others have said here, quarantining dragonets is not generally a practice performed even by advanced aquarists as they have a thick coat of slime which protects them from parasites and they are delicate. -- read up on this at http://www.wetwebmedia.com">www.wetwebmedia.com</a>

2 months before you buy the mandarin, get some Chaeto growing in your sump and add 1-2 bottles of "Tigger Pods" directly to the chaeto. Put a couple ML of PhytoFeast on the cheato every 1-2 days and you will have a good bloom of pods in your tank for when you drop the mandarin in.

Hopefully you will get as lucky as me. My mandarin eats literally EVERYTHING that goes in the tank. We started out feeding him Rods food and he caught onto that pretty quick. From there, pellets, flakes, brine, mysis, and now Nutramar OVO. Hell, EVERYTHING loves the Nutramar OVO. It's like crack in the tank.

Edit: Here's me feeding my mandarin some mysis via tweezers =)

[IMG]http://youtu.be/cI232V9B-jo?hd=1">http://youtu.be/cI232V9B-jo?hd=1</a>

 

[KrisDeitz]

Rich come get some rock from me. I ave tons f pods. My glass looks like its covered in algae at night

 

[rdnelson]

Great vid Jeff. If I could make one suggestion though......get him a napkin. He eats like a pig. LOL

Kris, I might take you up on that. Been thinking about adding a little bit of rock. I like the minimal look but I think just a bit more would be nice.

Thanks to all of you for input. Makes me feel a little better about it.

 

[jef4y]

and here's where I realized I called you Ralph. LOL... Sorry, I was reading his post right above where I was replying. =)

 

[rdnelson]

No apology needed. Especially since I didn't even notice until you mentioned it in the apology LOL

 

[bulkrate]

Starting up a pod culture in one or two 2-liter bottles/large mason jars (this is Georgia, after all) would also serve you in good stead. Both during/if you opt to QT or simply want an easy food answer while you attempt to ween it over to a prepared food. Just make sure you get a benthic species like tisbe biminiens or another bottom/rock/glass-dwelling species.

Also, Marine Designs now carries nutramar on a routine basis, which can really help keep the fish's weight up.

 

[rdnelson]

Lots of good info here from all of you. Thank you for your help. I will definitely refer back to this as I go forward.

 

[ripped tide]

Be careful keeping mandarins and anemones together. I've seen them being eaten before.

 

[rdnelson]

I don't like the sounds of that!

 

[ripped tide]

I've only owned one mandarin. It was eaten. I still have the anemone, so no use in trying round 2

 

[jef4y]

I've got 3 anemones in my tank and the mandarin fairs just fine for the last 3 or so years. I will say that they are bizarrely crazy fish. They have ZERO social understanding. They WILL go into any fishes territory without any consideration, and then when they get chased (to which they don't really respond) they're all like "what's your problem buddy?" while they just swim lazily around.

My mandarin will go RIGHT up to the clown eggs and the male will just gently nudge him away. Any other fish would be freaking dead if they came close to those eggs. Mandarin's are weird... And that's why ours is named Yoda =)

 

[ripped tide]

My anemone issue may have been that the anemone was on the sand. The mandarin must have accidentally hopped in. What can I say, the anemone is a strong feeder.