11 replies to this topic

[marineboy89]

Ah it's been a good few months since I last posted some pictures of my tank, lots of new stock and corals, so thought I would share a a few pics and see what you guys think. So I now have: a Mandarin fish, sexy shrimp, a False Gramma fish, 3 x PJ Cardinals, a conch snail and a cleaner shrimp! Slowly coming along :-)

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[Teri Parsloe]

Looking very nice... I am still holding out on my mandarin for a good while.. But he is pretty

[marineboy89]

Yeah my tank was about 5 months old when the Mandarin went into the tank, maybe a little earlier BUT he is a good boy and I have managed to train him to accept frozen food, so he will eat mysis and brine shrimp, which is a stroke of luck. I still do put in a ton of cultured copepods once a week, just to keep him happy grazing on the rock, the perfect fish and the reason that I wanted a marine tank in the first place :-)

[Mort]

cracking pix mate... And well done on the training Could you sort my lad next?

[SNS]

Lovely pics! Excellent stuff on training the dragonet

[EvilSean]

looking good m8 ... will be even better when the live rock starts sprouting and looking more natural but that takes a while ... good job on  not rushing !

mandarinfish are excellent little fellas ... I set up a tiny tank for one with just a huge chunk of live rock and some CUC ... let it run for 6 months until it was brimming with copepods etc then dropped him in there ... 5 or 6 years i think he was happy in there then seahorses happened and i needed anything that would hold water lol

i think you just convinced me to put another one in the big tank


if i may make a suggestion ... the frags like as much light as they can get ... consider moving them up onto the rocks in little crevices or platforms closer to the light and still in full flow ... also this helps keep any sand dwelling critters being tempted to snack on them

unless im a fool and those are artificial ...in which case definately put them in the rock

Edited by EvilSean, 14 January 2012 - 10:43 PM.

[Falat]

mandarins have got to be the best fish ever i love mine

[minicooper]

Looking good mate, Ill be getting a madarin as soon as I can get rid of the devil fish.  

[Falat]

a pic of mine but was taken in my old tank

[Teri Parsloe]

He is a stunning fish

[Falat]

i wanted a female for him but dont know where get one

[Jimmy Francis]

Awesome! How did you train your mandarin to eat frozen? I have one that is very picky. He only went for the pods in the tank, until I learned this trick. My buddy Tuan starting using water bottle caps weighed down with crushed coral. He then put frozen prawn roe in the cap  and covered it with a net he cut up and wrapped a (small) rubber band around the perimeter of the cap. He place's the cap on the substrate net side up and the fish "sniffs" it out, blows at the cap and roe "puffs" out. It's an amazing idea because the fish is actually foraging like in the wild and readily eats the frozen food. I have seen this work over and over again with notoriously hard fish to feed. The fish will get a taste for frozen in no time, after a couple of weeks you should be able to feed the tank normally with out having to use the cap trick!