Mandarin Q's

[mad921]

Heya. Wondering if some of you more experienced mandy keepers could give me an opinion of how mine is looking. I've had him for about 2 months now. When I got him he was pretty thin with a very pronounced line on his mid-section. I think he's looking better, definately fatter, but this is my first Mandarin and I feel better deferring to more experienced eyes. Few shots of him chowing down on some mysis this morning:

Thanks!

 

[leebca]

Hard to tell if its coloration is good or not, from the photos. The photos seem overexposed to some degree.

Keeping in mind the axioms: :evil:
A fat fish doesn't equal a healthy fish; and
An eating fish doesn't equal a healthy fish

I'd have to say you want to feed mysids not mysis. Mysids (the small crustacean from saltwater) is a whole food and is the right kind of food. You can feed small plankton, Cyclopeze, and whole saltwater copepods, but include some food supplements (fats and vitamins) which the usual home aquarium and the foods may lack here and there.

Does it have any tankmates? What is the size of the aquarium?

If it lives over a year, let us know. That will be a fair indication that its nutritional and environmental needs are being met. Good luck!

 

[mad921]

Hard to tell if its coloration is good or not, from the photos. The photos seem overexposed to some degree.

Keeping in mind the axioms: :evil:
A fat fish doesn't equal a healthy fish; and
An eating fish doesn't equal a healthy fish

I'd have to say you want to feed mysids not mysis. Mysids (the small crustacean from saltwater) is a whole food and is the right kind of food. You can feed small plankton, Cyclopeze, and whole saltwater copepods, but include some food supplements (fats and vitamins) which the usual home aquarium and the foods may lack here and there.

Does it have any tankmates? What is the size of the aquarium?

If it lives over a year, let us know. That will be a fair indication that its nutritional and environmental needs are being met. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply!

I think that the problem with the photos is the angle of the shot in relation to the lighting which is pretty close to that spot in the tank. I can try to take some better if it would help. His coloring is really vibrant.

The "mysis" are definately the saltwater version, just sold under the generic name, thus my labeling. I actually verified that after reading your sticky. Didn't realize that there would be a distinction prior to that.

The tank is a 24 gallon nano (which is technically too small, I know) which he shares with 2 O. clowns. It has about 30 lbs of live rock and I charge it with copepods from a culture every week and also supplement with a 1000 pod culture from oceanpods every 3 weeks or so. I also feed cyclopeeze once every other day, but honestly have never seen the mandarin show any interest in it. He really loves the Mysis though. I use a small bulb type oral syringe to spot feed him and he comes right up to it from across the tank when he sees it.

 

[leebca]

EXCELLENT! (Except for the space bit).

 

[GSMguy]

fat and healthy that is textbook fat belly keep up what you are doing its working he is sweet mine looked like that till the maxi jet sucked it up

 

[pfish]

That mandrin is in good shape.

 

[mad921]

Thanks everybody. I appreciate the input.