My Mandarin is going to make it!

Well, I got my sump set up, waited for the pods to multiply and finally got my Mandarin Goby (Dragonet)! Being a chronic cheapskate, I got one for as little as possible. Of course, for that price, I got a wild caught, stressed-out, half-starved fish. His belly was sunken in and he was extremely skittish. It took three days in my reef tank before he even moved from his hiding place under a large rock. Frankly, after all I have heard and read about these fish, I expected him to die of starvation. On that third day, a glimmer of hope began. He was doing a little hunting and I saw him picking at some of the rocks... I assume he was eating pods. Over the past few days, he has become a bit more bold... even came out in the open a few times. Yesterday was a great day! He was hanging out in one of his favorite spots in the back of the tank and I squirted some frozen brine shrimp down in his location with a baster. He started eating them!! He is no longer sunken-bellied and I am confident he is going to survive.
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Many thanks to all of you who have helped me become a saltwater addict and especially to lilfishie who provided some macroalgae for my sump. (BTW, it has grown prolifically and I will be trading some of it today for some Zoos.)

Great news,

wow. that is quite the success story. ive heard so much on how hard it is to keep that fish, much less a wild caught. they are quite beautiful. i would love to get one, but that will be a loooong while from now. good luck and keep us posted!!!

That's cool everything is going in the right direction. That is a truley awesome looking fish!!

My Mandarin ate some more frozen brine shrimp today. When I started this post, I wanted to post a picture of him. I had no idea how I was going to get his photo, but when I went in there with my camera, he just popped out on top of that rock (and on top of that mushroom). It was like he was saying, "Here, let me pose for you!" He is not only a beautiful fish, but he has tons of personality.

I'm so happy for you and especially happy that that mandarin is doing well and belongs to someone whom loves it and is working to take care of it.
That macro algae if you noticed was full of pods too. And yeah, it grows like crazy. I need to thin mine out again too.
Enjoy the little guy, he is soooo cute!

My Mandarin is a big show-off now! When I have customers over to look at fish and accessories, he plays hard to get at first. Then, after a few minutes, he comes out front just long enough for everyone to comment on how beautiful he is. Half of the time, they ask me if he is a frog when they only see his head at first glance. I'm thinking of calling him Kermit! I can't believe that I built that whole sump system just for one fish! Is that addiction?!

On another note I had a great Saturday. Sold all of my saltwater fish that I had for sale (gotta get some more from my supplier) as well as a 29-gallon Biocube system, complete with live rock, corals and fish. I am overloaded with live rock right now. Maybe I should put an ad in the fishmarket here besides the one on Craigslist. Anyway, Saturday was my best sales day ever and it made my biggest week ever.

Yes, lilfishie, both my reef tank and my sump are loaded with pods. Now that the Mandarin is eating frozen brine shrimp, I probably wouldn't need that many of them, but they won't hurt anything. "Kermit" still goes hunting. I only do the brine shrimp once a day. I am considering raising live brine shrimp. I can use them for my Angels and Discus also.

Llovsbarbie wrote:wow. that is quite the success story. ive heard so much on how hard it is to keep that fish, much less a wild caught. they are quite beautiful. i would love to get one, but that will be a loooong while from now. good luck and keep us posted!!!

I doesn't have to be a long time. I can help you set up a small tank, connected to your main tank that would work just for the Mandarin. Then, of course, you can use all of my vast few weeks of experience to help keep him healthy!

Got some better pics... the glass is not so dirty
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He is looking fat and healthy.
Happy little fish.

Just a little update. "Kermit" is getting more bold all the time. He doesn't run and hide when someone gets close to the tank now. He has discovered that there are a lot of pods out in the front portion of the tank also. When I feed frozen brine shrimp now, he goes to his spot and anticipates the food floating down to him. He has even tried to catch them while they are floating down.

My refugium is producing hundreds (thousands?) of pods now. When I look at the front glass with my magnifier, I seem them crawling all over it. When I get my new tank built, I may get another Mandarin. Perhaps this one can teach his survival techniques to a newcomer. Gotta do a lot of study before I attempt that. I'm not even sure this species will get along with his own kind.

With all the new corals and fish, my tank is waaaayyy overcrowded. I am compensating by doing a 20-25% water change weekly. So far everybody seems healthy and happy!

Well, its best that he be the only mandarin in the tank. Unfortunately they do not like sharing their territory. One of them will more than likely kill the other.

And what other coral and fish. We want pictures!

I was totally shocked tonight! I was preparing to feed frozen brine shrimp to my saltwater livestock and I grabbed the wrong baggie. (I keep small portions of frozen fish food in baggies.) I put bloodworms in the cup I use to feed from. I normally only feed bloodworms to my freshwater fish. When I saw the mistake, I decided to go ahead and feed them to my saltwater critters. I was totally amazed when I dropped some down by the Mandarin. He gobbled them up like they were candy!

I am going to post my reef tank again with individual pics of the inhabitants in the show and tell section. I tried it earlier; had my post all ready and hit the preview button. I got a message that the server was too busy at that time. When I hit the back button, everything was gone! Over an hour of arranging and organizing my post... and pffft! all gone!! I was not a happy camper. I'll try again tonight, but I'm saving it all in a text file before I hit the button!