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dherrera83

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Yeah they are alittle hard to keep alive. Unless, your tank is very well established then it shouldnt be a problem. They are just picky eaters but by keeping a good amount of pods in your tank you should be fine. Good luck!
 
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rookie07

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i add half a bottle of live culture (green water) every 2 days to the tank no skimmer on my 33 gallon

How long have they been in the tank?
Mandarins can slowly starve over several months.
Also, dragonettes eat pods, not plankton so green water will not do much for them, other then feed the pods, but eventually all the pods will be eaten.

Unless you have about 100 lbs of live rock in a sump they will most likely starve and stop eating.
 
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thirty5

A Little Annoyed!
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How long have they been in the tank?
Mandarins can slowly starve over several months.
Also, dragonettes eat pods, not plankton so green water will not do much for them, other then feed the pods, but eventually all the pods will be eaten.

Unless you have about 100 lbs of live rock in a sump they will most likely starve and stop eating.

+1

I have one in my 28 that eats frozen. I could never imagine 3 surviving in a 33 unless they are eating frozen.

Like said above the green water will feed the pods, but they need to reproduce to be able to sustain the fish. Do you have a fuge?
 

Shalco

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Great Neck, NY
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Check youtube for mandarin feeding, you can train them to eat pellets in a jar that you would place in the tank. I have not done this myself but it seems like it would be do-able. Also, a mandarin I had in my old tank would eat live brine (he also would eat frozen mysis), so you could supplement his feeding by getting brine frequently if you can't get yours to eat frozen mysis. Good luck with getting one, they're beautiful fish. I'm waiting for my tank to become more established before I get one myself.
 

Scarfers

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I have done tons of research on this fish and know the hardships required to keep one healthy and alive for longer than a few months. I have owned one before but that was like 10 years ago and I barely had a system to the one I have today and it lived for a few months till it starved itself to death. They are easy to care for but hard to feed considering they only accept live pods found throughout the tank. I have a solution to this and basically I will create a small pod farm of sorts.

I will take my rubble live rock and some sand and place it in the 10g with some cheato and throw a few pellets in there from time to time so the pods have something to feed on and reproduce.
 

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