And so it begins again... Mandarins Part II

[Europhyllia]

Many of you probably have seen my many mandarin posts. I have attached the mandarin article for those that haven't been exposed to my mandarin obsession. ;)

This weekend we drove to the coast and visited LFS to pick up another female mandarin.
Since I had so much trouble with sexing the spotteds the first time around I actually got two:
CC (short for Corpus Christi since we made the trip in large part to get her) from GC Reef and
Amy (short of Aquarium Masters) from Aquarium Masters of course.

Before we left I added a scoop of EZ eggs to the quarantine tank so when we returned a day later it was full with baby brine. :)

I have a divider in the tank this time to give each fish a safe place to fatten up.

I forgot how tiny mandarins are when you buy them. lining CC and Amy up snout to tail they both together would still be shorter than Bruce.

Even in best case scenario it will probably take a few months before either of them is ready to go to the display tank and meet Bruce.

Amy seemed a little slow yesterday. She has some damage to her fins most likely from another mandarin including some parts missing from her dorsal fin. I am hoping the part missing isn't the spike that would indicate she's a male! LOL

Both CC and Amy seem pretty chipper this morning. Learning from Bobbie's infection I added Seachem's stressguard to the water to help with healing Amy's fins.

I really miss Bobbie. It's weird starting over with tiny mandarins. Kind of makes me anxious: that waiting for them to start eating frozen, etc.
I am grateful though to have found some promising candidates...

So brace yourself for another batch of target fed, roley poley male mandarins in a few weeks! lol

[Rychek]

Good luck Karin! Mandarins are an emotional roller coaster, but they are such awesome fish. I really miss mine, but I can't conscience putting one in a 30 gal.

[saabtech]

you are such a good steward of these little guys. i hope and i am sure everything will work out great for you.

[Europhyllia]

Thanks. :)
The little ones are doing well. Picking at baby brine and eating prawn eggs (what a life right?)
Hopefully soon they'll take a liking to bloodworms and mysis too...

[HoppyBunny]

What if they both turn out to be female (If they do, I will gladly take one off your hands :wink_smile:)? How do you decide who is right for Bruce?

[Europhyllia]

Bruce is the boss. He decides. ;)

[Europhyllia]

Most books will state that you should be able to keep one male and one or more females together. Especially since they usually mate each night with whoever is available and it takes the females several days to get a new batch of eggs one would think multiple females would work out great. (Bruce can be kind of bothersome when his female doesn't have eggs and wants to be left alone)
Unfortunately though I read on MOFIB that both sexes generally don't appreciate another one of the same in the same tank. Bummer, right?

[Kristy]

I have heard that also about the same sex mandarins in a tank.

Glad to hear you are trying again. But what's with such feminine names: CC and Amy? They're sure to be both males now!

[Europhyllia]

I was thinking the same thing! LOL
Amy for sure is doomed to regenerate his dorsal fin with a spike.
I thought CC could go both ways... ;)

[Kristy]

We actually have a female cat named CC (stands for "cow cat" named by the toddler who was her first owner). But our friend had a kitten she thought was a female, named her Cecilia and called her CC for short. When the vet later announced that CC was male, it now is for "Cecil."

[Europhyllia]

Glad to hear you are trying again.

I think this will be my last time until they become available captive bred. It's kind of sad to see them with that line across the side and the sunken in belly. Capture and transport must be hard on them. Scary to think that a lot of them will go directly into tanks that won't be capable of giving them the nourishment they need to rebound from that initial weight loss.
:(

[txg8gxp]

I love this picture, very cool. Thought you might like it.

[Europhyllia]

That is a great picture!
This one isn't of great quality because it was under actinics but I still love it:
Bobbie and Bruce doing their spawning dance:
http://www.dominopads.com/spawn1.jpg

[txg8gxp]

Very cool, reminds me of two male snakes fighting over a girl.

[Europhyllia]

The little mandarins are still only eating baby brine and prawn eggs but Amy's dorsal fin is healing well -and still looks like a girl.
Can't wait till they start munching down on bloodworms. I can breathe easier then.
I wish I had started Bobbie's treatment sooner. She was in excellent shape before. She could have healed fine if I just hadn't waited too long. :(

[Europhyllia]

Things are continuing to go well. Amy is getting ahead as far as weight gain goes. In fact I bet the tummy will be round in just a couple more weeks.
CC is still a little skinnier and I am wondering if it's because of how I divided the tank. Stuff blows from CC's side to Amy's side so Amy has always more to pick from.
But I make sure I have something for CC at all times.
I may swap them around and see if it makes a difference.
I am also back to using the Selco in an attempt to make the bloodworms more appealing to them.

[saabtech]

great news! keep up the good work.

[Europhyllia]

Thanks Saab!
The Selco did the trick. Both are readily accepting the bloodworms.
I bet in just a week of two the line along their sides will be completely filled out.
CC has an interesting mark on her side where the green ring around one of her spots is broken. It will be easy to ID her by that since otherwise they look so similar!
http://www.dominopads.com/cc031710.jpg

http://www.dominopads.com/amy031710.jpg

[Europhyllia]

I removed the divider today to see how it would go and to better compare them.
By dorsal fin both appear to be female. Prominent eyes on both of them as well.
CC seems a little longer than Amy which appears more stocky (male?).
CC also is a little more assertive than Amy. I'll see how it goes.
If they take frozen well tomorrow I might introduce them to Bruce soon.
Kind of feel inspired by this cute video Stephen send me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmRUVR-PqQs

ETA: I jsut fed them and they're all over it. Feeding should not be a problem. lol

[Kristy]

Oh my gosh, that youtube video is the sweetest most amazing thing I've seen in ages. I could have watched that for an hour. Just amazing!

Totally makes you want to step up and learn to breed the little guys, doesn't it?

[txg8gxp]

This is a funny one...Looks like the diver has a new buddy.
Rapx1lc3_Nw

[Europhyllia]

Oh my gosh, that youtube video is the sweetest most amazing thing I've seen in ages. I could have watched that for an hour. Just amazing!

Totally makes you want to step up and learn to breed the little guys, doesn't it?
It encouraged me to move ahead and place the little ones in the display despite the size difference.

The weirdest thing happened!

After acclimating the little guys to the big tank they landed close to each other.
Then Bruce came and displayed to one of the little ones. Then he turned around and swam towards the other one and the first little one followed him!
Then all three just stayed huddled in the corner together.
I expected the little ones to be chased off. Maybe they were just too stunned to move.
Now I can't see any of them. I hope Bruce didn't eat them. :hypnotyized: Compared to him they're tiny.
Can't wait for the lights to turn on in the morning.
Fingers crossed nobody gets injured.:nailbiting:
Some bad pics of the trio (unfortunately the camera focused on the tube worms and gazillions of collonista snails instead)
http://www.dominopads.com/trio1.jpg http://www.dominopads.com/trio2.jpg

[txg8gxp]

He has some new buddies...

[Europhyllia]

He's kind of a grumpy dude though.
I am prepared for the quarreling to begin tomorrow. :( QT is on stand bye if it gets too wild.

[ErikH]

How many of each sex? They will fight if not paired correctly. :(

[Europhyllia]

How many of each sex? They will fight if not paired correctly. :(
You are kidding me right? ;)

[ErikH]

I read somewhere that the females fight, and will never stop. Or were you hinting at sarcasm? :D I figured you knew as much, but it's always better to cover ALL of the bases, not just a few! :)

[Europhyllia]

The thing about the females will be the unknown I think.
The males of course would tear each other apart. It's one way to find out if you really have a female or just a juvenile male.
It was a major challenge when I was in search for my first pair.
Bruce of course is definitely a male.
So I brought back two little mandarins from Corpus that at this time appear to be female.
In the wild they are harem spawners. A large male will spawn in the same night with several females.
When I had my spawning pair that was a bit challenging as well since it took the female several days to develop eggs and be ready to spawn but Bruce would pursue her every night and be quite annoying.
The divided attention towards several females rather than just one would have been a real advantage there.
Because of the harem spawning most books state to keep one male with one or more females.
Unfortunately one of the people most knowledgable in them said his observation was that there would be tension between any same sex mandarin in the same tank. In other words: males fight with males and females fight with females.
I really mostly bought two little females in case one of them turned out to be a juvenile male. It would be wonderful if a harem worked out but I am prepared to rehome if necessary.
So that's where we're at. We know for sure that two males would fight to the death. We don't really have enough info to know what two females will do.
Lights are still off. Hoping everybody is okay when they turn on...

[Europhyllia]

My trio is doing well this morning. I hope I am not jinxing myself but out of the 5 mandarins I tried to match Bruce up with over the last 9 months this has ben the most peaceful match so far.
Maybe them being so tiny was actually an advantage. He doesn't seem to feel threatened by them and the little guys are happy to tag along and hang out together.
Hopefully it will stay that way. That would be super awesome!
From what Wittenrich wrote even at that size Bruce would have detected the males so I am hopeful both are female.

[Kristy]

Or were you hinting at sarcasm? :D

Yeah, Erik... I think you may have missed her sarcastic ;). I keep saying that we need a special font for sarcasm. You're a computer guy, maybe you could work on that for us?

I have a nice healthy female green / blue / psychedelic mandarin in our 210g that I've had for at least 2.5 years. I have tried twice to pair her with a male and neither one worked out long-term for various reasons so I've quit trying for now.

When I was reading and talking to folks about it (the attempts at pairing), I heard from more than one source that you want to get the biggest difference in size that you can between the two to help them accept the newcomer without the excessive dominance issues. So I paired her once with a male that was half her size and as soon as he entered the tank, she swam up to him, locked her jaws on his tail, and spun him around like a scene out of a wrestling match. They ended up very happy together after that initial display of "who's the boss" and were beginning some courtship overtures about the time that the little guy (who had grown to be not quite so little by then) got jumped and beat up by one of Mike's meanies and did not make it.

The next time I paired her with a male twice her size but he did not survive long in my care and I have no idea why, as he did not appear to be starving or even skinny and was only with me about a week. I did not know then as much as I know now about training them to accept frozen (my female just tought herself early on to come eat when I feed!)

[Europhyllia]

The size difference is fantastic! Bruce and one of the little ones were waiting on the feeding rock together. The other little one is always near too. SOOO CUTE!
Happiest day in a long time. :)
I always heard female mandarins prefer larger males.
Maybe that's the trick to getting a pair: start with a male, feed it and watch it grow for a few month and then add the female (since they always seem to be available only in small sizes).
Bruce has really been so good. And so far no aggression between the little ones either.
I'll be disappointed if one of them grows a spike.

[saabtech]

thats great, you needed something positive lately

[BSJF]

Yeah. Spring love is in the air. Cold air, but it is there.

[Europhyllia]

For sure!
Bruce and CC are always together. A much more peaceful pairing than Bob and Bruce actually.
CC chases Amy off when they encounter her but it's not anything as violent as when Bruce targeted his initial partners (turned out to be males) so I am not sure how easy it will be to remove Amy should I choose to rehome her.
Bruce chased his opponents to the top so it was easy to scoop them out.
CC just chases Amy off so she just goes to another spot in the tank and keeps munching by herself.
http://www.dominopads.com/bobncc0310.jpg


http://www.dominopads.com/bobncc0310_2.jpg

[Jarob]

I love them! congrats!

[StevenSeas]

Karin, your article from the original post is very good and thorough. However, I have two questions, what was the design of the feeding station? It appears to be an acryilic rectangle with a hole on either side of it, what else does it entail? Also when you said you fed decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, did you just place the eggs themselves into the breeder basket or did you first hatch them out?

[Europhyllia]

It appears to be an acryilic rectangle with a hole on either side of it, what else does it entail? Also when you said you fed decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, did you just place the eggs themselves into the breeder basket or did you first hatch them out?

Thanks!

It has a clear acrylic tube on top that reaches all the way up to the water line so I could just put the Kent sea squirt in there and put the food in the box easily. Without a sea squirt you could just put half a cube of frozen if you wanted but it would take some time to travel down that tube.

I fed the decapsulated brine eggs before hatching. The idea was to get them used to the sea squirt delivering food. Only the ones that didn't get eaten turned into naupli.
Back then I didn't have the frozen prawn eggs yet. Might try those since getting the decapsulated brine eggs is expensive (overnight shipping required)

The main thing I learned since writing that article for the MAAST newsletter is how important it is to get a size difference in pairs. If I did it over again I'd always get the male first and have him for a few months so he can get big (if you are even thinking of a pair) and then get a small female later on. Much less fighting than with closer sized mandarins.

[StevenSeas]

thank you Karin. I am picking one up this weekend along with a breeder basket and now apparently frozen prawn egss lol. Might also have to find time for a cool little feeder box like that

[Europhyllia]

The thing with the feeder box is that they really have to want their food to begin with. Until they are reliably after frozen food the feeder box won't do much so you might have more time for that. :)
Get small (like Hikari) bloodworms too. That's a favorite for all of my mandarins.

[StevenSeas]

thanks for the tips. Do/did you keep the feeder box in there all the time or just at feeding time?

[Europhyllia]

I only used it for a short time after I wiped out the pods. Then I kept it in all the time. I think it's easier to get used to new furniture if it's just there all the time and the real advantage of the feeding station was that you could leave stuff in there for a long time (hours) and still be able to get it all back out.
Right now mine are just coming to a little rock cave they expect their food at now. It's convenient but of course I can't clean up afterwards so I just give them what they can eat right away on the rock.
In the feeding station you can leave more food and just leave it in there longer.