Mandarin Fish - Medium

The Mandarin fish is one of the dragonets family of fish which are small with great patterns and fins. The Green Mardarin fish the most colourful of them all.

The Green Mandarin fish is from the Western Pacific Ocean around Australia and the Philippines.

It’s easy to identify the males from the females as the males have a longer pointier dorsal fin. It isn’t difficult to get a pair of Mandarin fish as a male and female kept together will usually pair up and will often breed in the aquarium. Yet it can be difficult to raise the fry due to their feeding requirements.

The Mandarin doesn’t actually have any scales, but its skin does secret toxins. It’s vivid colouration is no doubt as is often demonstrated in nature it’s way to tell predators that making a meal out of them wouldn’t be a good idea. As they secret the toxins through their skin it’s also advisable not to handle the Mandarin fish.

Tank Recommendations for Mandarin Fish

They like a tank with live rock and plenty of caves and cervices to hide in. They need tank of at least 284 litres, a bigger tank that has more sources of prey for them is ideal though. The most common problem that Mandarin fish face in the aquarium is malnutrition and starvation.

They also appreciate having a sand substrate at the bottom of the tank.

Suitable Tank Buddies

Mandarin fish are a peaceful fish and so will mix with most fish. Exceptions include predatory fish that can fit them in their mouths and members of their own species who will compete for food resources.

Usually Compatible

The Mandarin fish will happily live with Angelfish, both dwarf and larger varieties, boxfish, butterfly fish, cardinals, clown fish, damsels, dartfish, sea horses, gobies, puffers, tangs crabs, snails and shrimps. They are also no problem to keep with live corals and rock.

Sometime Compatible

The fish that can be difficult to keep with Dragonets are other dragonets, blennies that will compete for the same food resources.

You also need to watch them with filefish, hogfish and parrot fish. In a fish only tank without coral and live rock you should also watch them with wrasses.

Rarely Compatible

As with all small fish even with hiding places they shouldn’t be kept with Frog Fish or Anglerfish, Eels, Groupers, Sharks or Rays that can fit them into their mouths. As having a toxic skin may not help them if they’ve already eaten them.

Feeding Your Mandarin Fish

Feeding Mandarin fish can be tricky, if you have an established aquarium that’s 6 to 8 months old then your mandarin fish will find food.

It will eat zooplankton and phyto-plankton if you have worms, echinoderms, gastropods, copepods, amphipods, decapods etc in your tank. As the microscopic larvae of these will provide food for the Mandarin fish.

If these food sources aren’t available enough amounts in the aquarium then the Mandarin will then eat larger prey such as artemia. This is not ideal for them and in the long term they may suffer from digestive problems and can result in death due to malnutrition.

It is important to ensure that there is a regular supply of zooplankton, you can add Live Rotifers and Live Copepods before you get your Mandarin Fish and then add more at regular intervals to top up it’s food source.

If you are have problems sourcing live foods then you can also try to train them to accept more foods. Start off by feeing them live brine shrimp which are usually easy to source. Then mix in frozen artemia and slowly reduce the amount of live brine shrimp.

Once you are able to get them to accept just frozen brine shrimp, you can start mixing mysis shrimp, krill and some pellet food to give them more nutrition.

To do this start mixing in some frozen mysis shrimp in with the frozen brine shrimp and then do the same with the krill and pellet food.