LFS has a Mandarin! But ...

So I've been looking for a healthy mandarin for a bit and a random stop to a LFS, had one stocked! But here comes the but.

The tank he was in, has a few rocks, NO substrate, and about 15 other fish(tons of butterflies, long nose hawkfish...ah just too many for roughly a 20 gal long tank.


They got all the fish yesterday and someone put them all in one tank! I'm guessing its a Q tank, but still very crowded =/. I asked them a few questions, just to gauge their experience and it wasn't terrible, but not reassuring either. Apparently mandarins do well with flake food? lol

My guess is, this mandarin is as good as dead in that tank... unless someone buys it.

I feel like my tank is too young still, yet I do have thousands of pods in my tank, and have a small but growing pod farm tank too.

I think my plan is going to be, watch this mandarin at the LFS over the next few days, try to see if they can get it to eat anything, then consider buying it. It looks very healthy and fat so where ever it came from was good.

I just feel like, if I don't try, the fish may die anyways, and I can't stand that :-[

Any Mandarin experts want to chime in?

My 90g tank is 3 months old, but an upgrade from a year old 46g which had too many pods(covered the substrate at night), so I transferred a lot of the pods over when I upgraded and they are growing well in the new tank, but not sure if that counts as being a more mature tank. Technically I should wait, but I believe it could survive, esp if I supplemented it with more pods if needed.

 

You'd have a good chance as long as you can supply more pods. I was worried when I got my mandarins about that so I purchased more pods for them, quite a bit lol. Granted the tank was set up almost 7 months but Still figured it would be best to add more. To this day I always forget about my mandarin being in there, since they are good at roaming the tank for their prey. In and out of rocks and such, Both are still fat and happy! . (almost 6 months later)

 

give it a shot. I think it could work. Maybe buy some pods to have an extra seeding.

 

Thanks for the quick replies!

I'm going to stop at the store today and see how its doing. I'll probably buy it, but ask them to keep it for another day or 2, just to make sure it's not going to die suddenly.

Hopefully this will turn out well.

 

Just talked with the one of the staff from the store. They said they have not seen him eat yet =/.

I don't think they are trying to feed him pods though. Hmm this is tough.

At least one decent thing the shop said.. they won't sell me a fish they can't get to eat themselves. Which is good in a way, but also bad if they aren't trying to feed pods to him.

 

Make them show you the Mandarin eating flakes.... If it does buy it on the spot, that way you know you have a fighting chance to keep it alive till you get more pods if necessary

 

oops, I see you already checked, it is possible to get them to eat flake, takes time and patience.

 

I heard that, but I also heard they need additional nutrition if you can get them to eat flake food.

I almost want to catch some pods from my farm, bring them to the store and tell them to feed him this lol.

They do have live brine shrimp at the store, maybe they havent tried feeding him that yet. I'm going to stop by the store tonight regardless if they will sell him to me tonight just to make sure they are doing all they can with it.

 

I would buy the mandarin asap. Even if it is not eating prepared foods, it will die surely at the LFS. It has a better chance either way in the 90 gall.

 

If the store has an established reef tank ask them to throw a chunk of live rock from the reef in there. Pods are sure to hitchhike on the LR and you should see him hunt fairly soon, I would think.