I’ve successfully kept a mandarin for a year. I feel I have done well in my reefing experience now

[u/BiggerHeartThanButt]

[u/blurrryvision]

Looking good! She looks healthy and well-fed. These fish can both be the easiest and most difficult fish to care for depending on your setup.

[u/BiggerHeartThanButt → u/blurrryvision]

I think I got incredibly lucky with my pick. He started picking at frozen foods within a month of owning him. Now, easiest fish, and kinda works as clean up crew with fallen mysis blowing in the flow!

[u/SimilarAbrocoma3045]

I’m also approaching the year mark with my mandarin! Love these fish

[u/BiggerHeartThanButt → u/SimilarAbrocoma3045]

He definitely is my showpiece. Anyone that comes by that knows or doesn’t know saltwater fish is enthralled by him

[u/pyro1973]

Can you indicate how often you dump new copepods to the tank ?

[u/BiggerHeartThanButt → u/pyro1973]

I started dosing pods probably a year before adding him. Now I dose pods heavily (two to four jars from algae barn) once every three months maybe. I also only dose them at night when everyone’s asleep.

[u/2beerornot2beers → u/BiggerHeartThanButt]

Woah, that’s a lot of pods.

How big is your tank (and refugium any?)

[u/bchhun → u/BiggerHeartThanButt]

I guess that’s what it takes! Nice job.

[u/vaderztoy]

Congrats!

[u/BiggerHeartThanButt → u/vaderztoy]

Thank you!

[u/thepumpkinprince30]

Any tips you can share?

[u/BiggerHeartThanButt → u/thepumpkinprince30]

My boy possible advice could be don’t clean the glass as much. I see pods on the glass frequently and he doesn’t go for them. But.. I think I got incredibly lucky. He started picking up on frozen mysis about a month after picking him up. I really think it was a chance deal. He still picks at pods.

[u/Cowsarefuckingcool]

Congratulations bro I tried so hard to keep one and I just don’t have the skills sadly

[u/KingNyx]

Mandarin is my easiest fish. I don't feed it at all. Just have a disgusting amount of pods in my 20 gallon + canister

Scooped some sand a few days ago to seed another tank and within a minute the water had thousands of pods in it.

I'm convinced as long as you seed copepods before you add a mandarin, it'll be the easiest fish in the tank

[u/FuzzeWuzze]

Rip mandarin, now the wind will blow east, your aquarium will go up 1 degrees and there will be a blood moon and your fish is toast. Kidding obv, good job those nuggets are hard to keep alive no matter how you baby them sometimes