Have wanted a Mandarin Dragon for years and everywhere i read and heard that you need atleast a 100 gal tank with lots of rock. Well my new found buddy at a local fish store here in vegas just came for china 6 months ago told me that as long as you train them to eat frozen food they will not starve to death as many do from not enough copepods in the tank (their main food ) well he showed me a couple of 30 gal tanks with 2 mandarins in each. And big and fat if i must say so. Asked how he has had such great luck and he told me luck is only half of it the other half is training them to eat frozen mysis and plankton he showed me a pair he was training that day and he said the trick is to put a couple of tigger pods in the tank thru a drip line and then when they ate them put the frozen in but not just frozen mysis but soaked it garlic for atleast 5 mins well after a sucessful training before my eyes decided to give it a go and now on my 2sd week of enjoying my beautiful green (blue)Mandarin dragon feasting on frozen garlic soaked food he is one of the most awesome creatures in my reef he glides around like no other fish just had to share this with my great new site here and must say love this site everyone here helps and not tells you your doing it wrong
Hello Tony and welcome to TR. That does sound quite fascinating and I will definately look forward to your progress in the upcoming year. Have you started a tank journal here yet? If not, I'd really enjoy seeing you do one on the dragon. They are a special needs fish and I'd definately like to follow along and see how things go, grow and so forth. Thank you for sharing.
Nice, it's always a treat to hear about someone training their mandarin on frozen. What size tank to you have this fellow in? I'm just curious because generally speaking, mandarins that eat frozen or prepared foods tend to use that food as more of a supplement, and still get the bulk of their nutrition from pods. That's generally speaking of course. Do you know how long the LFS has had those mandarins in the 30 gal tanks? That seems like pushing it to me, but if they're having long term success ( a year or more), more power to them, I say.
Great questions Phurst Let me start by saying he has his mandarins in those 30 gal tanks about 4 months from what i have seen and he wont sell them to just anyone he really does care about all his live stock and made sure to have me come and see him in action how to train them and all the care they need as well as helping me start a tigger-pod culture for the pod supply my Mandarin will need to be as healthy as he is and stay this way have a 70 gal oceanic with approx. 120-140lbs of lr that is over 6yrs old with plenty of pods of its own but since i started cultivating tigger-pods in a 5 gal tank from 1 bottle of tigger-pods now have them by the thousands in just over 2 weeks add a few hundred every week now after my water change and not only my mandarin loves them but my clown and corals,cleaner goby really enjoy them as well seem to have a great supply from my cheato section on my refuim think thats what it's called lol buy stuff just to have it and make sure i have a very happy and healthy reef
Well I must say Tony, it is a blessing and a great satisfaction to know that you are a dedicated, responsible reefer. Too many times hobbiest will take on a new responsibility prematurely, out of excitement, to become disappointed and heartbroken because they were not fully informed and prepared. I am so glad that you have done your research and planning. I wish you much success and satisfaction. Again..... eye candy!!!!!!!
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-My name is Jace i am 14 yrs old Im in Plymouth Minnesota and I love my 75reef.
Thats awsome Mandarin Dragon they are such a beautiful and fasinating fish. Im happy you are taking good care of your fish and doing it right most people like Lori said come in to the hobby and soon end up leaving it with dissapointment. Also I to would love to see some pics Thanks
Raymond
You'll need to upload them to a photo hosting site, like photobucket.com. Once you have them uploaded, you just need to copy the code for the picture and paste it into your message. In Photobucket at least, there are 4 different codes you can copy. You'll want the one that starts with "[img]".
i have a mandarin and he/she love to eat that orange egg stuff the sushi stores use on california rolls. my lfs told me to introduce them slowly with copepods and its been 2 years and its doing great. its changed colors over the years its more orange now.
it could be, but it definitely is a lot more orange than it ever was. it seems to be doing well and all that matters to me is that its healthy. there is a lot of info out there(www) on cultivating pods. just google it. i think there was even an episode on here.
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