mandarins - your thoughts?

[XeniaGirl]

Good evening,
I have a 5 month old 12g JBJ NanoCube, everything is going smoothly. I currently have no fish due to an unfortunate mishap where my tank got too hot and boiled all my fish. However I've resolved the problem.
My parents are moving out of town and want to give me their target mandarin (and also possibly a red hawkfish). I have copepods out the you-know-what in my tank so I don't think he would starve. I also know that mandarins are reef safe.
What are some other things I should know about mandarins? - I don't want to get him if he's going to end up being unhappy (or an ex-mandarin) so I want to research first. I have lots of xenia, mushrooms, etc but no anemones. I have a cleanup crew consisting of: emerald crab, peppermint shrimp, 3 snails, and about 10 reef hermits. I have a fuzzy urchin too.
Thanks in advance!

[ChilisREasy]

12g may be too small, i never could keep them alive, they say you have to see them eat before you take them home, ive seen very few people that could keep them for extended periods of time, usually only in large tanks.
BTW are you talking about Dragonetts mandarines ?

[Geoff]

you may think you have a lot of pods, but that size tank would be cleaned completely out of pods by a mandarin in a few weeks.

G~

[kyrie_eleison]

xenia,

A 12 gallon is way too tiny and I'll bet you anything that some of your pods are being eaten by some of your cleanup crew. If you have no other choice, I wouldn't keep him for long. He'll decimate your pod population in a week or two and eventually starve. I know...I tried it twice in a 55. The first time I was lucky, I traded it away. The second time...is a longer story. Personally, I'd rather have pods. They are part of the cleanup crew.

Mandarins are too delicate; beautiful...yes, not very fast swimmers either and easy to catch but are best left in the wild. Besides, in a big tank (at least 100 gallons w/ 100+ lbs of live rock present and 6+ months old) the only bragging rights are that we have one. They don't exactly make their presence known so you really have to look for'em. So you're not really missing much.

[markrxdi]

i added mine to my tank after about 2 months, i have about 60 lbs live rock and the tank is a 55 gallon. i have seen him grow already, tank is about 4 months old. I have added 2 bottles of tiger pods once a month for the past 2 months, he is nice and fat and doing great. Im not sure if the pods are multiplying or what but i have noticed them all over the glass a few times in the past couple weeks. I also just added a sump w a refugium a few weeks ago and im pretty sure that will help out too. just wanted to share my expiernece with my mandarin with you, hope it hepled you some.

[weepingtuna]

I have had my mandarin over two years now. He hsa put on some amazing growth and his dorsal ray is very long. He is housed in a 125 gallon tank. I have never seen any sign of copepods. I do know that my mandrin loves blood worms. Good luck in making your decision.

[Loverotties]

Too small of a tank for him to live.

[XeniaGirl]

Thanks for the info. I've always thought that they are beautiful but I've never seen one in a small tank (especially one as quite as small as mine).
I was looking at a target mandarin, btw. My parents' tank is about 135g and they had copepods for a while (living under a huge bunch of ricordia for the most part) but my mom was still paranoid that he would starve.
Again, I think that they're very beautiful but I've heard - more than once - about how picky they are when it comes to food, how often they starve, etc. For the time being I will see if I can just get him to the LFS for credit or something, now that I know this information I don't have the heart to try and keep him as my own.
Thanks again.