mandarin pairing question

[nickyblase]

I have a male mandarin that has been with me for quite a while. Now that my sixline is gone, I decided to get him another girlfriend.

The fish was labeled female, and I took the LFS's word for it (she's been pretty accurate on this stuff in the past).

The two of them don't go near each other all day, and then close to lights out, the male comes over to where the other one hangs out, and starts swimming kind of fast - not AT the other fish, just near him. I haven't seen it attack it yet, but there is a nip on one of the front fins.

The male's fast swimming would make me think the new one is not a female after all, but I don't know.

The darn fish won't put it's dorsal fin up so I can cross reference it to Cindy's drawings!

This has been going on for about 3 weeks so far. If the smaller one were definitely a male, I would have thought the larger male would have killed him by now.

Thoughts/ideas?

I am toying with the idea of putting the established male in the sump for a while to give the other one some more time in the display. Just can't get him in the trap! Not sure how I am going to catch that little bugger.

 

[~Flighty~]

Sounds a little like normal male female behaviour, but hard to tell. do you have any pics?

 

[nickyblase]

I haven't taken any pics, because the smaller fish hasn't raised the dorsal fin even the tiniest bit. Do you think the mirror trick would work?

 

[nickyblase]

Just for the heck of it, I put a mirror in front of the glass in the spot where she hangs out, and it took a little while, but she finally put her fin up. It was pretty rounded, and definitely no peak of any kind at the back of it.

I am pretty certain that it is indeed a female, but will try to take a pic if she comes back in front of the mirror. The other fish became interested in it, so she swam away.

 

[nickyblase]

I can't get a good picture to save my life. Of course she/he was in a spot with lots of coraline and dirty glass!!

Hopefully you will be able to see something. The dorsal fin is fairly rounded, though it's half way folded back in this picture.

I will keep trying to get better pics. Not easy though - especially with the fin up.

 

[coralcor]

prity good pic... be better if you cleened your glass lol

 

[apex008]

How did the LFS identify it as female? Spine or no spine. I have seen/heard of mandarins where the spine can break and be mistaken as females.

P.S. Usually if you look hard enough you can see the base of the spine.

 

[nickyblase]

prity good pic... be better if you cleened your glass lol

I know - haha. The spot where this fish hangs out though is in the back corner of the tank, right next to the overflow, so it's not very easy to get the glass clean there. I will keep trying.

 

[apex008]

I wish you luck. I read that you were going to sump the established fish. Hoq come? I think missed that part.

 

[kotu100]

when you sump an established fish it allows the new addition a chance to familiarize itself with your tank without the stress or aggression from another fish. also i think since the other fish is away from its usual surroundings, its not as dominant when you put it back in.

 

[~Flighty~]

95% sure that is a female. I wouldn't worry about the behavior. my females have always gotten fin nips and sometimes get chased and end up a little ragged. That just seems to be part of their interaction with each other. Just watch her weight closely. females need to eat a huge amount of calories to be making eggs and will starve to continue making them.

I wouldn't separate them for the fast swimming. He is just showing off and trying to find out if she has eggs.

 

[apex008]

I agree with flighty.
I am aware of reasons to sump fish. I did not realize that there were issues of her fish fighting/stressing/squabbling each other.

 

[nickyblase]

Thanks Cindy. I will keep them where they are.

She has gotten a little thin, but I have seen her picking at the rocks regularly, and also have seen her eat a little PE mysis pretty much every day, so I am guessing she will start to put on some more weight once she gets a little more comfortable in her surroundings.

I will keep everyone posted, and if I can get a better pic, I will post one up here.

 

[~Flighty~]

As long as she is going in the right direction weight wise and she knows the mysis is food she should be fine. Just make sure you are putting enough food in. My guess would be at least 15-20 pieces of pe mysis is needed per day just for her if she starts spawning and the male's eating will go up a little as he spends more energy displaying for her. You can try target feeding her the mysis with a baster or putting it in a little jar or still area so she learns where to go get it so you don't have to overfeed the whole tank.

 

[coldshutter]

talk to the guys at sea creatures they were trying to breed them and i think had success. keep it up your doing Neptunes work here. there are way to many of these amazing fish dying and being taken from the wild. let me know if you need any help with tiny bugs to feed the young i have a ton for my cuttles

 

[~Flighty~]

BTW if anyone is up to trying to raise the babies (no small task) My pair spawns every few days and I could try to collect the eggs.

 

[apex008]

Mandarins are broadcast spawners and have a ridiculously long larval stage and super tiny, like microscope size at first. They have been bred in captivity and raised using wild collected plankton and such. So exactly what to feed them has not been specified. If it was known, the other problem would be culturing them. Best bet to breed them is a tank with oodles of rock rubble and branch by them selves. Something like a 29tall or a hex tank. Then some sort of system to collect eggs. Then goto local beach and collect plankton.

This information is based on events 6-12 months ago, so there maybe more information on them available.

P.S. I am not using broadcast spawners as the way they EXACTLY do it (not sure if that is the appropriate word for them) but eggs are fertilized and are let to drift free.

 

[ReeferMedic]

I've tried on two occasions to pair my male mandarin(who was there at least 2 years before I added the first female) with a female. He wound up killing both of them pretty quickly.(Just offering my experience, not saying this is what you have going on.) I'm 100% sure the mandarins I added were female. They say even fish have their own personalities. Maybe he wants another male! :: Seriously though, Cindy has a ton of knowledge about these guys. Besides doing a ton of research yourself, she's your best bet for info here on mandarins.

 

[nickyblase]

OMG Don - that's funny. Maybe your mandarin is like Andrew Dice Clay - too much of a dink for any woman to want him!

How long were the females in the tank each time before they were killed?

Just out of curiosity Cindy - for other people's benefit when they may be trying to determine the sex of their mandarin... what criteria did you use when looking at my picture to gauge if it was male/female? Are there other characteristics other than the dorsal fin that can be hints?

 

[nickyblase]

Very interesting info on the breeding piece. If the eggs are broadcast, and the mandarins were in their own tank with lots of pods, etc - would the eggs make it to the next stage of life without collecting & removing them? That's assuming there were a consistent planktonic food source available in some other running system....