3 y.o. mandarin in a 46g. aquarium.

Hello,

I do not generally write to forums, although I read them occasionally. I must admit that I don't like the scrutiny of people criticizing my ways of doing stuff, and I know that what I will write may upset a few people. I will not change the way I take care of my reef aquarium, and it has worked pretty well for me in my modest opinion. If you have any questions I will be more than happy to answer them to the best of my abilities.

I would like to share my experience in caring for a Mandarin Dragonet. I do not have any particular knowledge, but he (I'm quite confident he's a boy) has lived for about three years and counting. From reading about mandarin dragonets online it seems to me that three years are quite a long time, especially if we consider that my aquarium is rather small. I have no refugium, or any fancy equipment. I cannot give you the exact date of when I bought the fish, but I have checked my emails, and I have found a receipt from a live copepod suppliers dated 1/12/2008, and I know that was made a few weeks, if not months, after I bought my dragonet at a local store. I would have to go through my bank statements if anybody is curious to know the exact date of purchase of the fish.

When I bought my dragonet the owner of the store showed me that he was eating frozen food by feeding him a good chunk of brine shrimp which melted, and he lazily gulped on at one point as it passed next to his moth. I saw doing the same thing in my aquarium a handful of times. He was housed with another mandarin, seahorses, and a cloud of spaghetti algae.

So I brought him home. My reef aquarium has been set up about 6 years ago, so it was about three years old back then. The filtration is a reef octopus hang on skimmer (can look for the model if anybody's interested), I used to use floss and carbon in a marine land hang on filter but I have switched to purigen (which I tried, and liked, many years before) and ferrous oxide (I think that's how it's called) in two different media reactors. I have a hydor koralia 1050 for recirculation. Its tankmates were, and are, a coral beauty (with a touch of HLLE, then and now), and two percula clownfish. I have no other invertebrates except for those who live in the live sand, which is more or less three inches deep, I would guess. I have about 50 pounds of live rock (I was told by the person who sold it, never weighted it myself but I doubt it's much more.) I have some trumpet and finger coral which have multiplied like a weed, a bubble tip anemone which never split, some star polyps that cover most of my live rocks, a few button polyps. I have never lost a fish but to my stupidity (like, stuck in an impeller) or by suicide. Well, except that copperband butterfly which I bought when my aquarium was new and lasted three months...(changed store after the owner gave me that bad advice.) I have ordered copepods online three times, 12/2008, 2/2009, 12/2009, but then I realized that my aquarium was already exploding with copepods. I checked a few nights ago and the buggers were crawling everywhere.

Now, haters beware, this is how I do it. I never change the water (perhaps a few gallons in the early days.) My aquarium has some different kinds of cyanobacteria growing on the glass which I remove the visible area maybe once a week. I realize that there are ways to get rid of cyano (like water changes) but I am afraid that by eliminating it I would also eliminate what the copepods feed upon, hence killing the little fishy. I never vacuum or even touch the sand bed, fearing to hurt the little creepy creatures. By the way, mandarins are always described as very active fish. I would not describe mine as such. He hides in the darkest corner of the aquarium, feeding every few hours for a few minutes from the bottom of the tank or the back glass. I hardly see him, and he hides whenever he sees me moving, so, to observe it, I need to stand still on the sofa until he comes out. Meh... I feed my fish some flake food and brine shrimp. (I know, potato chips.)

I do not check the nitrites, nitrates, or ammonia, so I don't know their values, but my water looks crystal clear and smells like a healthy aquarium should. I only dose calcium when I remember. I use RO/DI from the local windmill thingie. Yet, my mandarin is still alive and I am one hundred percent sure that it was never replace by my wife or son, since they probably forgot about that fish the day I put it in the aquarium. Just in case...

Yes, I am sure he's a mandarin fish, Synchiropus splendidus. Either that or a sand sifter goby in a costume. I know my tank is not as pretty as those of many of the members of this forum, but at the same time, I think that if I kept my tank as clean as those I see on the forums, the little feller would already have died.

I am writing this because I was wondering if somebody had similar experiences with similar results to share, since this fish is notoriously hard to keep and extremely attractive. So perhaps we can make them live a little happier in captivity. Or perhaps I am just lucky...well, my fish is.

If you have any questions or comment I'll be very happy to read them. Please refrain from spewing hateful comments, I already get enough of those in my daily life. I may even try to make pictures. By the way my fish is not for sale, nor would I sell it for any (reasonable) amount.

Thanks for reading.

 

cool story but .... ;D

 

Hi! Thanks for reading my story.

I have managed to snap a couple of pictures of the lucky fish. I know my tank is a little drab and overgrown with unsightly stuff. But that's the whole point, I think it is necessary, at least in a small tank, to have an overabundance of crap for the copepods to feed on if you want to keep a mandarin in a small tank for more than a week. I will not make any change in my tank until "you know who" is alive (knock on wood.) In a bigger tank probably those nutrients are more diluted because of the larger area. I hope I am making any sense.

This is the little feller engaged in the usual early morning routine, shyly looking for food, and occasionally picking at the "grass" or at the sand. I wish I had one of those "aseptic looking" tanks, but then I feel that in order to achieve that I have to block one of the elements that allow photosynthesis, and perhaps that would cause my pods to starve, and hence the mandarin.

By the way, my clowns are constantly lying eggs. I wonder if those also become part of the food supply. Oh, and the snail is just the empty shell of a turbo snail that died long before Mr. Manda arrived.

Thanks for reading. Any constructive comment is greatly appreciated. By the way, let me reiterate that I am not an expert of any kind, and I am posting here just because I have had a mandarin dragonet for a significant amount of time for the specie, and I am trying to figure out why that happened, and learn something interesting in the process.

Also, have a wonderful day.

 

From the pics you have a female, a male would have a ray extending from the front of the first dorsal fin.

I have 2 very fat and happy mandarins (a mated pair, bought separately from different stores) in my 1.5 year old 46 bowfront. They'll eat any meaty food I add to the tank so they should be around for a long time.

 

Skyfire, thanks for the reply. I thought it was a male because the dorsal fin has an elongated "strip" which almost reaches the tail. So I assumed it was a male, but I'll refer to her as a she from now on.

I have really never noticed my fish eating a significant amount of "meaty food", but honestly, I hardly see her at all. Would you describe yours as overactive, hummingbird-like? Cuz mine is a lazy bum, and has pretty much always been that way. I thought perhaps being "overactive" is a sign of a fish desperately looking for food.

 

Mine are always out and about but are pleanty fat so it's just thier nature to be always on the prowl for food, unless sleeping or courting (thier dance by the moonlights is cool).

This pic show a male
http://www.saltwaterfish.com/thumbn...rindragonetgreenshrimpi.jpg&maxx=300&maxy=300

 

I would really like to know what your nitrate levels are in the tank, as I am thinking that just may have something to do with your lethargic mandarin.

 

I will check my nitrates out of curiosity, I haven't check them in years. I'll buy a kit and post the results in a few days. However, it does not seem to affect my other fish, and perhaps more than lethargic, I would describe my fish as not particularly concerned in constantly hunting for food. Still better than dead.

Skyfire, gorgeous picture, and I have heard and seen videos of the mating dance, but never saw it in an aquarium. It must be pretty spectacular.

 

No one can shoot you down for how you care for your tank unless you truly don't know what the heck you are doing. What works for you may not work for anyone else. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Your reef is thriving and that's all that matters. Everyone has opinions. Its your choice to listen and take the advice or not. That's what makes this hobby so special.

 

Thank you reefbruh, you articulated my thoughts perfectly.

Anyway I went to "the biggest, and smartest, pet store in the US" and bought the cheap API kit they sell there. Yes, I do have way too much time to waste. No, I do work.

Anyway, I tested and the water color did not change. It stayed on Strega yellow. Since I was worried that the test solution may be flawed, I tested with tap water, and the test solution changed to Strega and Aperol orange (10-20 ppm) (Another edit: I am confronting my results with the website of the water company I use and those levels are above the maximum level permitted, how refreshing.) There is more nitrate in the water I drink than in my aquarium.

The fact that I have such low nitrates was unexpected even to me, considering that I do not do water changes at all. At the same time I do remove a nice amount of cyano every weekend from the walls, that keeps the nitrate down, I would guess. After all, I would have loved to have had nitrates, at least I would have a suspect to eliminate in my years-long struggle against HLLE on my poor Coral beauty.

I know this is all anecdotal, but my hope is that somebody shares a similar situation, with similar results.

Thank you for reading.

Oh, and I forgot to say that I have removed all sponges and spongy material from my filtration systems. That may have helped keeping the nitrates down. I also feed my fish once a day, and not very much at all.