compatibility-Mandarinfish

[jack spiesz]

will a mandarinfish be okay in my 55gal tank with 35lbs of live rock,2 yellow talled damsels,1 yellow wrasse,and 2 pink tips.Iwould like to also get a flame angle or coral beauty,royal gramma,and possibly a tang,and more live rock.But these wont be for a while.(take it slow!!!).I was thinking the mandarin to control the pod population,Lots of them.

Thanks jack

[Michael_Lambert]

jack...

you dont really need to worry about there co Habitants.. but weather you can provide enough food..

Running only a 55g with 35pounds of rock is not enough, a mandrin fish would have everything eatten in the tank that small with in a couple of weeks.. at witch point your fish would start to starve and likly die with in 3-4 weeks.

Ideally you want to have a 100g... with around 120 pounds of live rock.. and prefered a refugium..

[Mckitrick]

I've heard about the voracious appetite of Mandarins... If you can get him eating regular food other than pods then he should survive but it's a chance you would be taking...

[pbutkovich]

I had a Mandarin in my 54 gal that had been up and running for close to a year when I put it in. I had well over 100 pounds of rock in there as well. Within weeks the Pods were hard to find. The Mandarin lasted 4 months before starving to death. Since the death of the Mandarin, there are now literally thousands of Pods all over the tank. Unless you can find one that is eating other foods as well, it will starve once the Pods are depleted.

[Dman]

Mandarins are pod eating machines, they dont stop, I sometimes wonder if they even sleep.
My experience is the same as Paul's, 4 months to starvation. A truely expensive way to feed brittle stars.
Dman
:spin: