mandarin stays in one spot of tank. normal? good? bad?
 

it seems my mandarin has migrated to the other side of the tank and has stayed there. he ventures up and down a bit on the hidden side of the live rock.

i haven't seen him venture around the whole tank hunting for food.

does this sound like normal behavior or something to be concerned about?

i don't have agressive fish in the tank (orange goby, yellow watchmen, tiny damsel (not agressive), 2 clowns, and a LN butterfly)

it may be that there is alot of pods round that area, How old is the tank and how long have you had the mandarin

the tank has been through a few moves. over the course of 5+ years but the last move was in june.

the mandarin is a week and a half old.

Give him time to adjust.Most likely he will venture around.My spotted mandarin wanders all over my 150.

odd, yeah he would go all over the place. are his fins moving pretty fast hoving at all or just sitting there?

Anything seem to be picking on him or harrassing him?

his one set of fins are moving fast. then sometimes he just sits and purching on rocks.

no fish seem to be harassing him.

The fast moving fins are normal.

yeah i figured that...i was just answering thor32766.

i guess i'll give him time too adjust more.

i even put a mandarin diner by him in hopes he can start eating frozen food. guess we'll see

they are very sensitive fish that need special live food to live (coco pods i think theyre called)

allenpantino,

yes im aware of that...which i why i thought maybe there was a bunch of pods in that area so he didn't have to travel beyond that. i'm not sure though

Your problem is that your mandarin was captured using cyanide. Sorry, this fish cannot be saved.

how do you know it was captured using cyanide? this is from a LFS..they would sell me a fish knowing that?

Sounds odd to us too. We've had a green mandarin about three months now and this little guy wanders all over our 150 also.

He stays in one spot when the lights are out. (Sleeping). He does most all of his hunting during the day and an added bonus he eats mysis!

LFS sell fish. I cannot speak to the ethics of a particular LFS but they may or may not even know this is the case. Because of how mandarins live in the wild, they are often captured using cyanide. These fish simply do not survive. I too have had the misfortune of buying a mandarin captured with cyanide (mail order, I could not inspect it). They NEVER survive.

The correct way to capture/collect mandarins is to wait until sunset and then simply scoop them up as they mate.

Many of the mandarins will eat mysis but it is not enough, in the absence of copepods to sustain them.

tonight he was out and about...guess he just did time to acclimate.

so far so good ;]

but how can you tell if it was or was not captured with cyanide? Color, fin movement? How can you so definitively say that?