Captive vs wild caught mandarins...

[afboundguy]

Looking to start a discussion about captive bred vs wild caught mandarins... I'm all for the captive breeding of fish in general and I'm not looking to start up a captive bred vs wild caught conversation because captive breeding is way better hands down. I'm just looking to get people's thoughts on if captive bred mandarins are worth the extra money?
I'm going to great lengths to prepare my tank for a mandarin since it's smaller and would go against the "you can only keep a mandarin with a larger aquariun" by culturing different pods, phyto and preparing newly hatched brine shrimp and possibly even going so far as researching rasining live mysis shrimp as well..

If I spend the $90+ dollars on a captive bred mandarin that eats frozen food and gets a taste of live food would it essentially be the same as buying a wild caught one for $20-$30 and trying to get it to eat frozen food? Hope that made sense it does in my head...

My main goal in all the culturing is to allow a mandarin to thrive in my smaller than suggested tank for a mandarin even if a captive bred one didn't end up eating frozen...

Again just looking for people's thoughts and experiences above and beyond the normal advice of if you get one make sure it's not emancipated and make sure it's hunting in the LFS tanks and so forth...

 

[mvallee]

I had a captive bred, it would hunt all day, never stopped but when I dropped pellets or frozen mysis/brine in it ate those as well. The real challenge is how slow and methodical they are. It would see a pellet, circle it, get close back off and then go in for the snack and more times than not by the time he decided he was going to eat it another fish would swoop in and eat it. He never lost his taste for frozen brine or pellets and he successfully hunted in my tank, the problem was the rambunctious tank mates getting to the food before him.

 

[absolutecarrot]

I think that captive bred is better

 

[JTM4UG]

I wish there was more places selling captive bred mandarins. The more the hobby can self sustain itself without damaging reefs the better.

 

[jah-hoeva]

I think algae barn sells them.

 

[MrX]

We got a mandarin from Michele (forget her screen name, she used to breed Banggai Cardinals) years ago with the earlier tank(s). She was breaking down the system and didn't even know she had it. She never fed it specifically... then again, she had a ton of tanks all hooked together, mega water volume.

We bought it and took it home to our 120G or Red Sea 250, forget which. Whichever it was the tank was only about a year old. We never spot fed it, but did keep an eye on it. We had a good population of copepods/amphipods. Whenever I got lucky at a raffle/conference I'd throw in a bottle of pods.

It was fat 'n healthy when we broke down the tank and it went to a new home.

If I were to buy from an LFS next time I'd probably spend a little extra and get a captive bred; for the obvious reasons. If I could get a good deal from another reefer with a proven track record (eating/heatlh) then I'd go for that.

 

[Blitzburggirl]

True story. I bought the worlds smallest Biota mandarin from DF & S.. last summer? the thing never ate prepared. I spend a ton of (good) money on pods.. and about 2 weeks ago the thing jumped and died.

 

[FishieBusiness]

Following along. Im thinking of adding a pair to my tank also. Kinda like the looks of the red mandarins

 

[kgstei]

No expert here, but I think the important things reqarding your particular situation is the size of the tank (you mention smaller) and what do you have in it that will compete for the food. Like MVALLEE said they are slow and methodical eaters. If your tank is small and your other fish are more aggressive eaters it may not matter whether it captive-bred or not. Whatever Foods in there may go to the other fish before on the Mandarin.

 

[afboundguy]

No expert here, but I think the important things reqarding your particular situation is the size of the tank (you mention smaller) and what do you have in it that will compete for the food. Like MVALLEE said they are slow and methodical eaters. If your tank is small and your other fish are more aggressive eaters it may not matter whether it captive-bred or not. Whatever Foods in there may go to the other fish before on the Mandarin.

I realize this and it's not really an issue and I havr made numerous plans to ensure the mandarin would be able to eat enough food so that won't be an issue. Just was looking for peoples input and experience on captive vs wild caught mandarins..

 

[kgstei]

With that being the case I would go with captive for ease of feeding. PaulB swears by white worms for live food. My question is if you added a wild-caught mandarin and a captive-bred mandarin would the wild caught one learn to eat frozen from the captive one .

 

[afboundguy]

With that being the case I would go with captive for ease of feeding. PaulB swears by white worms for live food. My question is if you added a wild-caught mandarin and a captive-bred mandarin would the wild caught one learn to eat frozen from the captive one .

Never thought of it that way actually... I had thought of adding a pair and could try that.

I do have white worm cultures going for one of the ways to feed a mandarin and I've also got my small glass jar with a handle attached to it to be able to give the mandarin easy access to the food and keep it away from all the other fish in the tank...

 

[Jessi]

I think captive bred is better, for a few reasons.

Survival: A captive-bred mandarin will be MUCH more likely to eat frozen food. I don't have to worry about my mandarin starving because it will happily eat the same frozen food I feed the rest of my fish (it particularly likes mysis shrimp). Mine even readily eats medicated food - really useful if you ever need to give it a round of antibiotics. It certainly prefers to hunt constantly, but I don't need to worry about destroying its only food source when I put in new rocks or move things around. [Edit after re-reading your original post: I don't think you need to worry about occasional live food ruining your fish's appetite for frozen food. If it's willing to eat frozen food, it will still eat frozen food again when it's hungry.]

Quality of life: A captive bred fish will probably thrive better in captivity. Moving the fish from tank to tank is stressful enough, without the added stress of being caught in the wild and shipped overseas. I have to assume that a captive bred fish will also be less bothered by normal tank conditions, including the presence of reflective glass, pumps, and humans.

Cost: I haven't done the math, but it's worth considering how much you'd spend on live food vs frozen food, especially if you assume the worst-case scenario: you never get your wild-caught mandarin to eat frozen food and there aren't enough copepods and other critters in your tank to sustain it. How much would it cost to provide live food for its entire lifespan? Include that in the cost of the fish. The $90 or $30 is only part of what the fish costs overall.

Ethical/environmental: This point is a bit more subjective and I won't go into it much. There are only so many mandarins in the wild - let them stay there. I think there's a lot of value in making this hobby sustainable and supporting captive fish breeding whenever possible.

A note on getting a pair: This seems a bit dicey to me. I suspect they'll fight with each other unless you manage to end up with a mated pair. If you're worried that your tank is too small for one mandarin, there's probably not enough territory for two.

 

[NHreefer]

Good video on Biota mandarins.

 

[Paul B]

If I spend the $90+ dollars on a captive bred mandarin that eats frozen food and gets a taste of live food would it essentially be the same as buying a wild caught one for $20-$30 and trying to get it to eat frozen food? Hope that made sense it does in my head...

I don't think it matters where the fish comes from. Mandarins are not like other fish and they live at least ten years. Thats as long as I have been able to keep them so maybe they live longer.
They are also the easiest, least maintenance, most disease resistant fish we normally keep. I am not sure why people have so much problems with them or why they spend any money on food for them.
I never bought a pod in my life.

They have no real stomach, just a silly tube like a pipefish so they need to eat all day like every ten seconds.

If you have a clean tank and you plan on feeding a mandarin frozen food or pellets. You will not have it long. Maybe a few months.
Mandarins have no need for those kinds of food and live on any small, preferably live creature. We call anything small a pod and so does a mandarin.

Just have a tank large enough and old enough. Don't vacuum the gravel every day. Feed foods with some type of juices like clam which will feed the pods and you should have more pods than you know what to do with.

If you want to spawn them you can suppliment their pods with a mandarin feeder like I designed which you fill with new born brine shrimp.


All the fish in this video are spawning, except for the shrimpfish.

 

[KJB]

I don't think it matters where the fish comes from. Mandarins are not like other fish and they live at least ten years. Thats as long as I have been able to keep them so maybe they live longer.
They are also the easiest, least maintenance, most disease resistant fish we normally keep. I am not sure why people have so much problems with them or why they spend any money on food for them.
I never bought a pod in my life.

They have no real stomach, just a silly tube like a pipefish so they need to eat all day like every ten seconds.

If you have a clean tank and you plan on feeding a mandarin frozen food or pellets. You will not have it long. Maybe a few months.
Mandarins have no need for those kinds of food and live on any small, preferably live creature. We call anything small a pod and so does a mandarin.

Just have a tank large enough and old enough. Don't vacuum the gravel every day. Feed foods with some type of juices like clam which will feed the pods and you should have more pods than you know what to do with.

If you want to spawn them you can suppliment their pods with a mandarin feeder like I designed which you fill with new born brine shrimp.


All the fish in this video are spawning, except for the shrimpfish.

+1 on your dyi feeder

I was searching for the thread on that to post.
Its awesome btw!