wrote on 19 Feb 2005 16:1:
My point is that Mandarin Gobies are known to be difficult fish to keep
long-term.

Could be, although lots of people have had success as well. Perhaps it just
isn't well understood what they need.

Even when there should be more than adequate food supply such as in the
case of my tank with over 300lbs. 60 or 75 lbs may be adequate, but I
think many would agree that this is only adequate.

My question is mo you have 300lbs of live rock, but you _haven't_ been
able to keep a mandarin. So perhaps there is some crucial missing issue in
your tank that has nothing to do with rock at all? Maybe mandarins need
something else besides live rock, and you don't have it.

If all you're doing is repeating what you've heard from other people, that
mandarins need a lot of live rock, and 50-75lbs is probably the minimum, well
then ok. But it seems that you didn't learn any of that from your own
experience. You haven't been able to keep a mandarin even with more than
enough live rock, so clearly there's something else going on besides the rock.

(One possibility: the arrangement and shape of the rocks may matter. The pods
probably need a sheltered place to live and reproduce. If all your rock is
smooth and exposed, then perhaps the mandarin can hunt down everything. But
if the pods have a rubble pile that the mandarin can't get in to, then the
population has a chance to be self-sustaining.)

Any competing feeders such as a wrasse, and the food supply may quickly be
inadequate.

I agree that it probably gets much harder if you have competing predators.
75lbs LR may work if the lone mandarin is the _only_ predator eating pods in
the tank.

The poster requested input from others, and I gave mine for what it is
worth.

What I found odd is that you both told him that 100lbs (?) of LR was "not
enough" for a mandarin, but then also said that you failed with 300lbs.

Why not say that 300lbs is "not enough", since that's your experience?
Or else agree that there may be issues for keeping mandarins other than the
amount of live rock. In which case, I wonder how you picked a number that
was "not enough LR". (Other than what you heard someone else say, I guess.)

-- Don
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Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/