Subject Of The Month (May)

[Lisa Page]

My favourite fish. Easy to keep if you have the right amount of live food (i.e. copepods) for them to continually munch on.

Here's a pic of my male Synchiropus picturatus, one of my all time favorite pics actually :wub:

http://www.reefgarden.homestead.com/files/Mandarin_3_291102.jpg

And here's a shot of my male and female Mandarins (female on the left) waiting for food to to be dispensed out of the pipette.

http://www.reefgarden.homestead.com/files/Mandarins_n_pipette_090403.jpg

Let's see your Mandarin and Scooter blenny pics..... please. :)

Regards

Lisa

[tuan]

Oh man Lisa, after those shots how can we even post pics!

Oh well... here's my little modest attempt :)

http://www.reefhaven.co.uk/gallery/images/mandarin_jpg.jpg

[Mushroom]

Love that "baby feeding" photo Lisa ;)

Here is one I took 9 months ago but not a good topic to show it in, until now!

Scooter blenny having a smoke at a seluded spot in my 10 year old+ sewer and somehow still manages to be extremely fat and active to this day, without any feeding by me of course.

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~mokkil/files/scootersd.JPG

[Cheryl]

Hi Lisa

On seeing your topic I couldn't resist adding my hubbies 'cherished' Mandarin

We've only had 'her'(?) a few days
(I just hope we're looking after her properly ..... she doesn't seam to eat apart from 'sucking' on rocks)

Hope you like 'her'

[Dickie]

Lisa,

What do you feed your mandarins. I would like one of these fish, but I probably don't have a large enough sustainable critter population to keep them. I've got a tank that at the moment is basically a refugium with a few species of caulerpa and some LR rubble. There are loads of critters there, but I'm going to be using this as a seahorse tank. When the they are added, they will decimate the population. I'm going to be feeding them frozen mysis shrimp (hopefully). Would I be able to do this with mandarins?

[Lisa Page]

Hi Dickie,

Please see the reply I posted in this thread. :D

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/index.p...ST&f=12&t=12124 (http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=12&t=12124)

Thanks for the shots guys and gals, it seems that Mandarins and scooters are a bit thin on the ground! Oh well, tis June now so another subject coming up. :P

Regards

Lisa

[MrFish]

Better late than never, heres Cooter the Scooter

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/cooter1.jpg

[CoralCulture]

Heres my little fella...

http://www.nickcrabtree.com/scooter.jpg

[Preds]

Wow. What a dude!

I love Scooters and Mandarins.

[MadSi]

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/image001.jpg

[zimreef]

...and mine also (just a month toooo late!)

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/psycho.jpg

I know that you are supposed to be able to tell the gender from the shape of the fish and its dorsal fin and tail - I think this is a male but am not that sure. As I would like to get a pair, is anyone able to confirm this (or otherwise) from this picture?

Don't worry about the whitespot on his head - it's just some gravel - he's always got a bit somewhere on him somehow. It's gravel - OK?

Cheers

John

[Lisa Page]

Hey cool, more pics! I knew that there must be more people keeping these wonderful fish out there. B)

John,

I can't tell from that shot, even though it's a great pic. Can you get a shot with 'his' dorsal fin raised? Males have a longer first ray of the anterior dorsal fin.

Here's a shot of my male showing the longer ray.

http://www.reefgarden.homestead.com/files/Mandarin_w_flash_2_291002.jpg

Anybody else wanna post their Mandarin/Scooter pics? It's never too late you know :D

Regards

Lisa

[zimreef]

Lisa,

Thanks for the info. Try as I might I can't get a pic of him (well, not that I'd post on here anyway :lol: ) with his fins raised. However, watching him he has got the same extended ray as the fish in your pic (yet another great pic from your portfolio!) so reckon it's just a question of keeping an eye out for a mate for him.

Are yours still spawning? Any further progress on that front?

Cheers again

John

[Chester]

hers a video of my 2 year old

http://www.oceanathome.co.uk/images/Mandarin.wmv

[Lisa Page]

Hi John,

Yes they are still very much in lurrve. They spawn a couple of times a month I think, maybe more I haven't been paying that close attention to their bedtime antics recently. I did try to take a pic of them in action last month but the female caught sight of the camera and scarpered leaving behind one frustrated male. :lol:

Good luck finding a female for yours, it's so worth having a pair IMO.

Hi Chester,

Great video, what camera did you use to take that?

Regards

Lisa

[Suk]

Well lisa you did say it's never too late so here's my latest pics :D

I caught the fella displaying at his reflection so whipped out the old camcorder, enjoy.

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin7.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin1.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin2.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin3.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin4.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin5.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin6.jpg

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/SuksMandarin9.jpg

Hope that's not too many :lol:

Cheers
:D

[JasandJules]

What beauties !!

My LFS have one in reserve for me whilst my tank is cycling, but I am concerned that it will not be happy in a Fish only (for now) tank...

Will it be ok without Live Rock to feed on? The tank it is in at the LFS has no LR and she has been there for a few months now...

[fuzed]

wow :) - my favorite fish...
just got mine feeding frozen food :) taken me a few months though! sooo happy that he is! gonna keep at it and get him nice and fat!

[tuan]

Originally posted by JasonF@Jul 29 2003, 10:18
What beauties !!

My LFS have one in reserve for me whilst my tank is cycling, but I am concerned that it will not be happy in a Fish only (for now) tank...

Will it be ok without Live Rock to feed on? The tank it is in at the LFS has no LR and she has been there for a few months now...
Jason,
In short.. no! Mandarins and Scooters feeds on pods and seldom take offered frozen food. They need to feed of lots of live rock in a matured tank else will starve. It may have survived so far at your LFS but that's no way to keep one long term.

[diadema]

Jason,

New tank + Mandarin - Live rock = short life span!

Sorry to say it but as Lisa pointed out in post #1 they require a LOT of pods to eat and the only way you're gonna get this is with LR!

Yes it's possible to get them feeding on frozen food but for long term success (and not just a couple of months) with these fish you NEED to provide the right conditions.



Nath.

[Preds]

Originally posted by JasonF@Jul 29 2003, 10:18
Will it be ok without Live Rock to feed on? The tank it is in at the LFS has no LR and she has been there for a few months now...
IMO, not likely. Mandarins need a lot of live food to live in good health. They feed constantly, and you need a lot of this live food to sustain them. I'd say the tank needs to be at least 6 months old, even with live rock, for Mandarins to be tried. I just don't think it's worth taking the risk with them sooner. If the population of copepods in the tank is not established, and you add a Mandarin, it may never expand to meet the needs of your Mandarin, due to the constant grazing on the population.

[JasandJules]

Soo, how do I get these copipods to thrive in my tank ??

(Without LR)

Is it possible?

[Anna]

Jason,

FWIW It's my intention to get myself a little mandarin when my tank is matured enough to support one. To this end I have started the ball rolling with adding a small hang-on refugium which will contain a few inches of kent biosediment and caulerpa. Into this I will be adding one of Clayton's copepod culture packs to kick start my population (I have already seen some running about on the LR at night).

You might want to consider a similar approach, just my twopenneth :)

Anna

[Preds]

Tis possible. You will need some sort of environment for them to live in though. Some rock with plenty of nooks and crannies will help them avoid predation, as well as a 'rubble zone' of broken bits of rock, again, to provide cover for them. A sand bed will help too. Then you'd need to 'seed' the tank with the sand from an established tank or refugium. This will hopefully transfer across some copepods, from which point they can expand the population. Getting sand from a few different sources will also help you get the right critters. You can also buy copepod cultures from Clayton on this board. Then you just basically watch and wait, until you have a good population. Ideally, you'd also avoid animals that may compete with the Mandarin, such as Chalk Gobies and Wrasses (like Pyjama Wrasses.)

[JasandJules]

I just added some stuff (LR fragments) from my local LFS who donated them for me.. I now have a green tree type thing, a brown twig fella, and a reg leg hermit just appeared from nowhere !! AND, I just spotted something which looked like a small grey shell scuttle across the bottom and hide behind the rocks... Interesting stuff !!

The missus allowed me to add it as it had already been in the LFS tank so was relatively safe, no mantis there.....

Think I may be able to persuade her a little more would be good too...... :D

Anna, thanks for that idea, that sounds cool... I could do that in the sump..