Some thoughts on Mandarins

[Paul B]

Mandarins are not like most fish we keep. Their digestive system is more like a seahorse or pipefish. They don't have a real stomach and can not store food as we, and most fish can. You can tell how often a fish has to eat by the size of it's mouth. A mandarin has a tiny mouth which is not designed to take a big mouthful of anything at any one time. They are also not designed to bite pieces off larger food items.
A mandarin was designed to eat pods and little else. We as aquarists tend to call anything alive, that we can't hardly see, a pod, but there are actual "pods". Pod is short for copepod but for our purposes we can call any small creature a pod.
Many animals in the sea were once pod size, and the young of almost everything we commonly keep in a tank, that hatched from an egg was a "pod" at the beginning of it's life. Of course if you keep Manta Rays or duck billed platypusses that does not apply. Well platypusses are a fresh water animal and they do lay eggs, (I think) and I know real ducks lay eggs but that is for a different thread.
Virtually all of the crustaceans we keep lay eggs but most of them hang on to the parent until they hatch, sort of the way Paris Hilton's dog hangs on to her.
But I digress. We all know that some mandarins will eat pellets and other commercial foods but this does not mean we can change the way it digests food. The short tube it has instead of a stomach has very little capacity to store food so it will get some energy from that meal but then be hungry for the rest of the day. A mandarin is an animal that was built to eat a "pod" every 10 seconds or so. Pods are small and mostly shell so they offer very little nutrition, but that is what that fish needs to eat.
To me, a mandarin is the easiest, least maintenance, most resistant to disease fish there is but it is also one of the fish that many people have so much trouble keeping for any length of time. I am not sure how long a mandarin is supposed to live because I am not the God of mandarin's but I have had many dozens of them. I find that they are accident prone and the first fish to find it's way into a powerhead when the screen comes off. They also swim up tubes and get stuck, but they almost never get sick and if you feed them correctly, you can't stop them from spawning.
Just today I saw a post about a guy who wants to keep one in a 5 gallon tank because he saw one in a 2 1/2 gallon tank.
Years ago they used to keep tigers in zoos in 5' cages. It can be done as you can keep a whale shark in a bathtub as long as his head is underwater. I am not sure how long he would live or what you would have to use to clean that bathtub with after it dies, but again, that is for another thread.
If you are the type of person that keeps a sterile, spotless tank, who goes to church to pray if you see a little algae or if you personally know Miss Hilton, then a mandarin may not be the ideal fish for you. Yes, you can keep one in that type of tank but that fish should live at least ten years and I can guarantee you it will not in a 5 gallon tank.
There will just not be enough real estate to grow enough pods, it is simple math.
You can of course teach it to eat pellets and throw one in there every ten seconds but sometimes your girlfriend may want to go out to dinner and have a nice glass of merlot.
In my tank there are plenty of pods and God knows what else so I can keep a pair of mandarins, scooter bleeny and some tiny pipefish that all eat pods, but I don't just want them to live, I want them to spawn, Why you ask? Because spawning fish are in the best condition, and if the fish is spawning it is extreamly resistant to "all" diseases and should live past it's normal lifespan.
There is a way to get a mandarin in this condition but it takes a little work and about $2.00 a month.
Luckily for us (and mandarins) brine shrimp are very easy to hatch and very cheap. A mandarin doesn't know a baby brine shrimp from a real Pod, and I think new born shrimp are vastly healthier. The reason they are healthier is because a real "pod" is an adult animal but a new born shrimp (or newborn anything) is mostly oil. A shrimp is born with a huge yock sack which is all oil. Oil has many times more potential energy than meat which is mostly protein. So for every baby shrimp a mandarin eats, it gets more energy. If you don't believe me, start a thread of your own and call it "Paul B is a crack pot and doesn't know a pod from a duckbilled platypus".
I don't keep platypusses, but at one time they were my favorite animal and I went looking for them in Australia. (I didn't find any but found something else, which is also for another thread)
Anyway back to baby brine shrimp. The problem with baby brine shrimp is that for some reason they like to have a tan so they are attracted to light, sort of like Paris. But the light always comes from above so they head to the surface.
Mandarins are attracted to pods and stay on the bottom. To remedy this, I built a baby brine shrimp feeder that is a simple device to keep the mandarin well fed by gradually distributing the shrimp near the mandarin. This is a simple plastic container with a fine mesh over it and a tube going to the surface. Every morning I pour new born brine shrimp into the funnel at the top of the tube and the pair of mandarins, scooter bleenies, pipefish and manta ray fry spend most of the day hanging out on ther mesh sucking shrimp through. When the shrimp are finished the fish go about hunting pods, but on every trip around the 6' long tank, they always visit the feeder to see if there is anything left.
As I said, it is simple to keep mandarins if you don't have a new, sterile or small tank but if you suppliment their diet "every day" with new born brine shrimp, they will live forever and if you have a pair, they will spawn almost every month.
I hatch shrimp every day in a shrimp hatchery and egg seperator, I don't know if they sell these but they are simple to make.
These are just thoughts and I hope it helps with mandarins or possably for the few that may want to try their hands with manta rays.

Here they are spawning


Hanging out at the feeder with friends.


And a video that may or may not work.

[ggrillo]

Sticky please!

[drukkosz]

great read could you give us more info about that feeder??
thanks

[Paul B]

It is just a container with a fine mesh over it. I used an old net. The container I used for this one is something that electrical tape came in but any flat container will work. At the top of the tube I have a small funnel where I pour the shrimp with a little water.
The shrimp last about 2 hours until they eat all of them but I have a lot of fish that enjoy them.
The video of the female mandarin is when I first got her and I built the feeder because she was so skinny.



Many of the fish enjoy the feeder but I made it mainly for the mandarins.
Here is another video with the copperband, mandarin, pipefish and scooter bleeny

[orangegoby]

i have learn something again, not just on the how-to side but a further attempt/concept of providing the animal an environment and feeding habit that makes them thrive(not just live).

technical question, so the density of the mesh would had to be big enough for the baby brine to be sucked thru. but not too big in order to hold them for a while?

also can you show a visual of the feeding funnel tube to the little container?

haha, someone is faster than me asking about the feeding design.

[Paul B]

technical question, so the density of the mesh would had to be big enough for the baby brine to be sucked thru. but not too big in order to hold them for a while?

also can you show a visual of the feeding funnel tube to the little container?

Exactly and for the video of the shrimp going down the tube, just stare at the picture of the tube and slowly move your head up and down.
Another video.

[o2manyfish]

I have enjoyed keeping Mandarins for over 25 years. At one point I had a male mandarin who survived 4 tank moves, several tank crashes and lived more than 10 years. I have always been a fan of lots of rocks in my tank and keeping the rock well seeded. I also keep dragon faced pipes as well.

Dave B

[Paul B]

10 years is great for a mandarin. I think I had this guy about 8 years before I killed him along with a 5 year old moorish Idol and an 18 year old cusk eel in an accident while I was out of town.
One of the only fish that survived that accident was my fireclown who is now 19 and still spawning, the old coot

[Paul B]

I also know about ducks. This guy, Duk Duk was my best friend in Viet Nam and stayed with me for a few months.

If I didn't have fish, I would have ducks. He would sleep with his head on my shoulder and make very quiet quacks all night, but when the sun came up about 4:00am he would put his cute little bill in my ear and say "QUACK QUACK" until I fed him.

He would walk with me and when I stopped, he stopped. I miss Duk Duk

[pinnatus]

Paul,

It looks like you and that duck may be more than friends.


Not that there is anything wrong with that. I understand war does some strange things to people.

[Paul B]

Yes, we were an item

[Paul B]

I thought I would update this mandarin thread because they are such cool fish. Mine are still eating from their feeder and still spawning but I wanted to mention that besides the new born brine in the feeder and the blackworms, they just love whiteworms. Whiteworms are easier to feed than blackworms because they stay alive in saltwater for a very long time, maybe all day. I know they can live in freshwater as I have a bunch of them mixed in with my blackworms and they are all laying around together singing Koom By Ah. I still like to feed the new born shrimp every day as they stay in the feeder and the mandarin can eat them for a few hours like they were made to eat, but I think the live worms provide an extra calorie boost especially if you are trying to fatten um a skinny mandarin or get them to spawn which they seem to love to do.

[35galSaltwater]

Originally Posted by Paul B

I thought I would update this mandarin thread because they are such cool fish. Mine are still eating from their feeder and still spawning but I wanted to mention that besides the new born brine in the feeder and the blackworms, they just love whiteworms. Whiteworms are easier to feed than blackworms because they stay alive in saltwater for a very long time, maybe all day. I know they can live in freshwater as I have a bunch of them mixed in with my blackworms and they are all laying around together singing Koom By Ah. I still like to feed the new born shrimp every day as they stay in the feeder and the mandarin can eat them for a few hours like they were made to eat, but I think the live worms provide an extra calorie boost especially if you are trying to fatten um a skinny mandarin or get them to spawn which they seem to love to do.

Thanks for all the info, now I am considering applying some of your experience to my 35 gal tank. I have a green mandarin (in addition to 3 other fish and some shrimp, hermits etc.). I am not sure if the mandarin is female, never spawned in those 6+ months that I had it but it looks like a happy small round fish. I never witnessed any commercial fish food intake, I am with you though on the idea that the small mouth and the regular fish diets probably are not an ideal combination. I have tons of life rock and every 1 or 2 month or so I add a bottle of pods to the tank. That seems to do the trick since the fish is not skinny and is active.

My questions:
- how do you raise brine shrimp and where would I get the starters?
- where do I get blackworms, and whiteworms? Do you breed those too? Are they OK in a tank or can those overpopulate? Are those the worms that are likely in my life rock already?
- Not as important but can you recommend a place to buy pods? My local fish store charges $25 per bottle.

Thanks!

[Paul B]

The brine shrimp are bought as eggs and must be hatched. I have instructions on here someplace and I will try to find it. Blackworms are freshwater creatures and will not live in your salt water tank for more than about ten seconds so they won't take ovet the tank.
They must be bought all the time as they don't reproduce fast enough for our purposes. Whiteworms live in soil and you need to buy a culture of them online and raise them.
I never bought pods as I collect them in the sea so I can't recommend a place to buy them
I hatch the brine shrimp and ceperate the egg shells in here. I built this but there are many devices on the market to hatch them. Just search for them. Brine shrimp eggs are very common and available at any aquarium store.

[dukduk]

what net mesh type? the finer one or the regular? i guess the finer one is called a shrimp net?

[Paul B]

Fine net, a nylon stocking may work

[MikeandNicole]

Loving the thread Paul, just saw it today!

[Paul B]

MikeandNicole, Thank you Mike, or Nicole, which ever one you are.

[MikeandNicole]

Originally Posted by Paul B

MikeandNicole, Thank you Mike, or Nicole, which ever one you are.

This is the Nicole part of Mike and Nicole, or NikkiT as you know me on another forum

[Paul B]

Oh OK thanks NikkiT

[TUT.Bellon]

Paul where are you located? Do you have a small male green mandarin for sale?

[Paul B]

I am in Nassau on Long Island NY but I don't sell mandarins. But they are very common in any LFS here.

[35galSaltwater]

Same here in and around Chicago. They sell them cheap everywhere. You can get one for $10 to 50 last time I checked.

Update on my Mandarin, I never managed the brine shrimp breeding but it doesn't seem to matter. The Mandarin is still happy. I have still not seen her eat anything ever but she must get some food, I had her for 1 1/2 yrs now. I only add pods 2 to 3 times per year. It's an easy fish to care for in my tank .

[FDshoes]

So I have had a female for about a year in my 180. Today I finally bought a larger male do they pair fairly easily or is it more of a hit miss if they actually pair up?

[Paul B]

I have never had a pair that did not pair. They don't hang out together or text each other, until it is mating time.