green mandarin curiousity

when i first got into the hobby a year and a half back i was amazed by the beauty of marine creatures and aquascapes. i have recreated as much as i can over the last year in my 50gal reef. over the recent months i have been searching the lfs for a green mandarin of perfect health and yesterday i found and purchased one. She is of great beauty and appears to be eating critters out of the sand and rocks but is only occupying one area of my tank. is this normal for a captive mandarin? should she be more active? i know these are difficult creatures that require much care since they rarely partake in frozen food. has anyone had luck that they could share, this is a beautiful specimen that i would hate to see deminish.
thanks

 

You can tell whether it's a male or female on the top dorsal fin. If it's long and pointy, it's a male. If there is not pointed dorsal, it's a female.

The mandarin might be staying on one side because it found a goldmine of pods. Eventually, you will see it wander on other areas of the tank. The only things you need to do to keep it in good health, is having good water params, and plenty of copepods. If you are not running a refugium, I highly recommend a lot of rockwork, so pods can be able to hide and reproduce. Or else, you will find yourself buying them quite often. By far, I have noticed that this is the best specimen to enhance your reef!

 

i agree rickzter they are amazing in detail and variations. it is a female by the way, pretty simple to distinguish. about the pods i am looking into ocean pods to stock my refugium, is this a good product? any one know
thaks all and any more mandarin info will be appreciated.

 

http://www.3reef.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=123

Tigger Pods

 

i've had two of them. both of them lasted more than a month and then died suddenly. one of them got something that looked like ick, it was dead the next day. the other one showed no symptoms it just died one day. both of mine ate frozen food and could be seen eating pods off the rocks all day. the point is for some reason these fish can die suddenly for no apparent reason so dont be discouraged if it dies.

 

good luck with the dragonet. i've always wanted to attempt the husbandry of this species, i'll be following this thread to peer in on your trials and tribulations. cheers.

 

ive had luck with mine i had one for a year and a half he ate bloodworms and brine shrimp but a wrasse i had gotten started taken chunks out of his fins and he dissapeared. i have since gotten rid of the wrasse and have gotten antoher mandarin and this one also is taking very well to bloodworms. if you get one you can try pod piles small pieces of live rock rubble in the corners and back of the tank so the pods have a safe place to hide and reproduce or try live brine shrimp a lot of lfg sell them. i got lucky where both have taken frozen food though where some dont

 

If you don't have a refugium you may want to buy some tiger pods and place some chaetomorpha macroalgae in you tank with them. Pods love to live in it and hopefully you can start a reproducing colony of them to keep your mandarin in constant supply. When I harvest my chaetomorpha from my fuge I soak it in FW for about 30 seconds and up to 100 or so pods leave the algae and I place them back into the fuge.