mandarin fish in biocube???

In that small a tank I would avoid any/all obligate feeders.

A coral banded shrimp, a clown, and one or two other small "nano" fish would be a decent load.

The problem with obligate feeders is that even if you do get them eating prepared food their normal feeding habits are usually such that they "graze" and spend most fo the day eating or in active pursuit of a meal. Unless you can feed them very small amounts 4-5 times a day their diet will still be lacking.

fwiw, I've had my 58g tank set up now for almost a year, and I just decided to add a mandarin dragonette this week. I have a well established refugium and have observed large swarms of pods in my tank for 6+ months, so I feel it's a planned but still cautious approach to keeping one of these fish. I would not do it with a 14g cube.

If, however, you're truly dedicated to keeping one, I would consider a refugium or a pod farm (10g tank w/ no predatory livestock, just for growing pods)... regular inoculations of pods, every other day, might suffice.

 

LOL

I am finally adding a single mandarin to my 200g tank after it has been up since September. I know i could have kept a mandarin before this, but I've been waiting for a reason.


As long as you feed harlequin shrimp starfish, they don't nee a lot of room.

 

Had my mandarin for 8-9 months in a 16 gallon with a 10 gallon fuge. Took months to wean mine from frozen brine to mysis to finally.. pellets. Yes I said pellets. It can be done, but it's a lot of work and with no guarentees.

 

do you still have the mandarin?

 

yeah hopefully i have enough of thoses in my other tank well thanks for the advice ill let yall know when i get the harlequins

 

Yes I do! Shes doin great an is very healthy and alert. She follows me around the tank. She knows who feeds her.

 

Ok cool! ...when you said in your other post "had my mandarin for 8-9 months" I was thinking- that's not really a long time to keep a mandarin. But glad to hear it's healthy and doing well...

My mandarin will sometimes eat frozen enriched brine shrimp when it seems to think they are copepods and "chases" them in the current. Even then, when it finds out it's not really a 'live pod' it may just ignore it, so it only sometimes eats the brine shrimp. Otherwise, I have not gotten it to accept any other prepared foods. Fortunately, there is plenty of live rock in my tank, and it hunts and eats copepods all day long.

I'm going through a bit of an algae bloom right now, so I have been limiting feeding to only what the fish will eat, so I haven't gone out of my way to try and train the mandarin... maybe someday though.

 

wow thats awesome how often do feed you her

 

When I first got her I fed her everyday 2x. Now I feed her every other day. Stuff about 8-10 pellets into the syringe and shoot the pellets on the sandbed wherever she's chillin. I'll have to get a video up. But here's some pics for Luna!