mandarin goby in a 8.5g

Keeping that average up I see... Your quality informative post to useless wrong information post ratio has to be like 1:50.

OP: I think the issue here is that it will be difficult to transfer enough pods thru chaeto to keep the fish fed. I have chaeto in my fuge and yes it is crawling with pods, but not enough to support a mandarin. I think if your 40g fuge was full of balls of chaeto and you could rotate them, you may have luck. However, an 8.5 gallon tank is awfully small and will probably have nitrate issues with a fish that has a very fast metabolism.

 

That Still doesn't mean that a mandarin would be happy. Sure, he might be pigging out and become fat. But food isn't the only factor. The actual tank seems too small to house a happy mandarin. With a combo of the rockwork and swimming space that fish will need, an 8.5 isn't nearly large enough.

 

Well I'm sorry if I gave some one bad info, sorta wish you took the time to talk about that at the time, but what ever I appreciate you talking about getting back to subject.
So far the only two arguments that have any thing to do with what I asked is that they need swimming room, and I'm not sure about that one, but I've rarely seen them get to 4in, so I could be wrong on that. The other one is that cheto would not be a good enough method of transporting pods, and I agree it would not be as good as having them grow in the tank, but if large enough amounts where switched, daily it could work. Any one have any better way of getting pods out of your fuge and into your tank?. Also people just because I'm asking about things dose not mean I have a mandarin goby in a 8.5, so you really can just save the preaching for your quire.

 

What are the dimensions of the 8.5 gallon? Also as a method of transporting pods, have you considered the shower poofs? You could keep like 7 in a fuge and have one for each day. I still think you would have problems keeping the fish fed and keeping parameters in check at the same time. I don't really know the dimensions of the tank, so I cannot comment on the swimming room aspect.

 

ya i have read somewhere that shower poofs work. but it is my thought that the pods still wouldent breed fast enough though

 

Your cool with me salt. I guess I should add this is my favorite fish and was really bummed to give mine away when I had to, so I don't think all this freaking out about a theoretical situation is necessary. I feel the point of sites like this is to talk about things rather than just try them and kill a fish to find out. We will all work better if we stick to the point and not get petty ( I know I'll go there more than I want too).

 

Mandarin Fish - Facts On The Beautiful Mandarin Dragonet

and they dont just reccommend 75G there for food....these little guys are super active and NEED room to swim...its like trapping a humming bird in little box for its life.

 

First off, I still say a 8.5 isn't big enough because of swimming room. If I lived in a small box, but was given any food I wanted whenever I wanted, I would not be happy.

That said, if you were to try a larger tank that isn't too small space wise, an idea for moving them would be to siphon them out, then pour most of the water through a shirt or something similar back into the fuge. I assume the pods wouldn't fit through the shirt and that would be a better way of catching them and then you wouldn't have too much water to add to the mandarin's tank.


Now I have the question of why do you want to put a mandarin inside the small tank instead of the main which would be much less trouble. If you want a small tank somewhere, there are plenty of animals such as mantis shrimp and seahorses that can be in fairly small tanks and can't be in your main one. If I were you I'd use the opportunity to get something like this that you could never put in your main tank.

 

You are probably right, I have no experience with them (why I said "small tank" instead of the 8.5) but I'm guessing where he has room for a 8.5 he has room for something that's taller. As far as I know seahorses like tall tanks just as much as wide ones as long as they have places to grab all the way up.

 

I have a small mandarin in my 75 and the fish uses all of the space in the tank for hunting and swimming. I have seen the mandarin actually swim into the flow of a power head get blown back and repeat a couple of times before settling back down to hunting.