How many manderins?

Do you have a sump? The pods will need somewhere else to reproduce and be protected otherwise they could wipe the tank clean.

 

You can maybe support 2, but only if you get a male & female. Any more then that & they will fight to the death. Possibly even if you get a M & F to begin with.

Everyone loves them but a good rule of thumb is to get 1 & be safe. They are too pretty to kill.

 

I doubt you could support more than 1, *maybe* 2 from what I've read.....unless you wanted to keep buying pods. Do you have a sump too? I've heard over and over they need a huge amount of live rock to produce the amount of food the need to consume. They eat almost constantly.

 

I would only do one. They eat the pods faster than you think! If your supper lucky you might end up with one like mine that pigs out on brine shrimp.

 

Just do one. If you really, really want a spotted mandarin I'd bite the bullet and do what was necessary to get the scooter out.

 

Well, I've been planning a Madarin tank for close to ten years now (and I order the tank next month...woot!) so while I haven't yet kept one, I've done a *ton* of research on it.

I suspect that there is not much info out their because these guys tend to die on people quickly.

One place I love:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/mandsysfaqs.htm

You have to dig hard to get all the info you want, but its worth it. Also this survey:

http://ozreef.org/library/articles/mandarin_survey.html

will give you lots of tips about what worked, and what didn't.

To sum up all that reading, it's one Mandarin fish per 75 gallons of well established tank with absolutely no aggressive fish at all, and no anemone at all. If you don't have a 'fuge, no matter how big the tank is, chances are good it will starve. And it wouldn't be a bottle of pods a month...more like every couple of days, especially if there is anything else in the tank that eats them. The two species *tend* to fight when placed together, but more likely its two males....of course, every fish is different.

I'm planning a 200+ gallon tank with a 55 gallon 'fuge, and its my hope after a year of running it I might keep two Mandarins at once. (Male and Female, natch) The entire tank system is being planned for those two eventual fish. Yeah, overkill maybe but read through some of those links, and these things just drop like flies if they don't have exactly what they need (usually food, ie pods or some lucky &*^(&$@!! that has one that eats shrimp.)


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Simple answer ONE!!

 

I have both a mandrine and a scooter blenny and both are doing great and growing fast i have had the scooter for 4 months and the mandrine for 3 but i also have a 300 gallon tank with around 700-800lbs of live rock in the main tank and a 100 gallon stock tank set up as a fuge with another 50lbs of live rock and tons of calerpa in it turn on my lights and pods scater from every where some of them are a 1/4-1/2 inch

 

I have a green spotted, and a red coris wrasse that eat all day, and at night I see all kinds of pods in the main tank (125g). I also have a 75G sump to