[luciafam]

We are thinking of eventually adding a Flame Angelfish to our tank. I wondered if anyone had any experience with this fish and if it would be a good match to our tank. We have a 60 gal tank and currently have a blue tang, a dartfish (scissor tail goby) a clown (true percula), a fox face and blue green chromis (school of 5). We are going to be adding a mandarin as well (not sure between spotted and green...any advice here would be great too.) Thanks!

Bev

[Olliereefer]

Hello Bev
Mandarin are quite hard to keep in captivity.They need plenty of living rock as this is where there main diet lives .ie; copepods and small crustations.They have been known to do well in a well mature system with as i say lots of LR.If you see one in your local fish store and you have the above make sure it's feeding on other foods(mysis,brine shrimp) as this will help too
Both types of mandarin will be the same type of care so it's down to personal choice.
If you have other greedy fish in your tank i would think twice or prepare to feed him/her in a little glass jar were they will fit in and feed but were other cannnot
If you need a picture of this as a example let me know and i will post one up on here
Ollie

[luciafam]

Hi, thanks for your response. We have a lot of live rock, I would say about 110 pounds. We have tons of the copepods lining the sides of our tank, covering the sand and all over the rock. If you look long enough, everything is moving! I was freaked at first because I thought it was a parasite! That is one reason why we thought this fish would do well in our tank. I don't understand what you mean about the feeding though. I have some shy eaters. The most rambunctious would be the school of chromis, which don't shoo anyone away, but are quick at feeding times. Our Tang doesn't really eat much of the frozen food, nor does our Fox Face...they eat the seaweed. Our clown eats well, but will let the school go ahead of him. The goby eats some, but does a lot of eating from his cave that he has dug out under a rock. When I feed, I use a suringe and squirt in several places so there is not so much competition. It seems to work well. Would I need to worry about feeding the Mandarin more then the copepods which are abundant? Thanks for the help!

Bev

[DEWAYNE]

if you have that much for him to eat, he should do really well.

[DEWAYNE]

I have had mandarin's and flame angel's, I never really got a long life span out of either one, I guess a year or so, don't really know if I did something wrong or not.

[mtfabel]

I have had my tank running for about 6 months with a female Mandarin in it after about a month or so. Take into consideration that I had lots of LR and live sand. I picked up a male mandarin yesterday. So far so good. I am hoping that they get along and form a pair. That would be sweet. But as long as you have lots of porous rock you should be OK with a mandarin.

[luciafam]

Hi
Thanks for that encouragement. So far so good. He arrived yesterday (vividaquariums.com) and seems to be doing well. Started eating the copepods right away. It is so fun to watch him stick his tongue out and lick them up. Seems almost salamander like. It's a beautiful mix of colors and design. Do you know how big they get. How do you know if it is male or female? We have about 110 pounds of live rock and also live sand, so hopefully he will stay satisfied.

[sweetbourget]

I had a flame angel in my tank and he attacked my mated pair of pecula's and eventually killed them. Took the angel out and flushed his ass.

[c-c]

Bev,
Wondering how your manderine is doing. I also have a manderine who is doing well in a 65 gal. mature tank 3 yrs. with lots of live rock, pods, and other microorganisms. Sounds like your fish are all compatible. I also have a blue chromis, 2 clarki, 3 pj cardinals and 1 scopus tang. The tang which is the biggest, is also the most dominant. Wondering if you ever got the flame angel. Depending on the amount of hiding places and size of your tank, the flame angel may get pushy and territorial, especially with the blue tang. It is good that you plan to add him last, as he will be less territorial that way.
I have noticed the clarki pushing the manderine out of "their spot". :rolleyes:
Does your manderine eat brine shrimp? I sometimes target feed him with a syringe, because the other fish will beat him to it. He also sucks it out of the power head foam prefilter which the others won't do. Some say that starfishes (especially choc. chip) will compete for the pods, so be careful not to add too many livestock that feed on pods, and your sweeties will stay fat and happy for a long time.
c-c

[luciafam]

Hi C-C,

Our Mandarin is doing great! I thought that maybe our live food amount had gone down because I was not seeing the little copepods hanging on the sides anymore and had harder time finding them scurrying over the rocks. I panicked and bought some arctipods online...thinking I was getting LIVE pods, but they came in a bottle and are dead ones! But my fish go crazy for them and gives them variety. The mandarin, on the otherhand, has nothing to do with them, unless he may get some that float to the rocks. But that same morning that my shipment was coming, I took another look right after I turned on the lights and the ground was covered in these little crawling things. They did not look like the copepods I saw before...these were much bigger and I could see two antennaes and little feet on both sides...lots of little feet. I thought, oh know...worms! But then thought, well maybe the Mandarin is eating those. When I got the articpods, I realized that other then the color...mine are clear to white and the ones in the bottle are pinkish, they look the same...SO, I have some type of pod in there. When the lights go on, they tend to scatter, but our mandarin spends all day picking over the rock and his tongue is always going out, so he is finding them. The only thing that still I don't have an answer for it the fading of color around his face. He did take a fall...kind of slipped down the sides and landed on an anenome, so I thought that may have done it. He is very lively and has grown so much in the short time we have had him. I think maybe 3/4 to an inch in about a month or so. I guess that means he is getting plenty, even though he doesn't eat anything I serve up.

I did not get the flame yet. Some were stating that our tank was overcrowded as it is, so I am waiting to see how things go. We have two newer specimens, an orchid dottyback and a red longfin basslet. The basslet has been unseen since it's arrival almost a week ago. It came small...maybe about an inch and a half, but you would think it would have shown in a week. We have not seen any remains, but I feel that if you don't see sight of a fish in a week, something must be wrong. And the dottyback, though it has been very shy, had seemed to find its niche. Had a little area of it's own and swam around that area, retreating into a little hole when it felt scared. Yesterday I did not see it come out at all and today is the same. I can see it in the hole and it SEEMS to have rapid breathing and it just laying in the hole. The hole is very small and so is the fish. I checked all my water conditions today and everything is perfect, and has been since it's arrival. The only thing I noted was that to me, it seemed the water felt warmer. Our thermometer just went out, so I don't know the temp for sure. I usually keep it around 76 and it felt pretty warm today, so I turned it down. Will have to get a new one today so we know for sure. My other fish all seem very active and no breathing problems. This dottyback is from the wild and I am thinking that maybe I should have bought the aquarium raised one instead. We'll see. I will have to sneek this one out if it dies because it belongs to my 3 year old and she will be heartbroken. Fish...never thought you could get so attached to them!!!

Would appreciate any other feedback.

Bev

[c-c]

Bev,
In regard to 60gal. tank, maybe the foxface growing to 9 in. and the blue tang potentially growing big to 11 in. will need a larger tank. You'll probably have to think about a larger tank for the future.
Do you have corals?
Did you lose your dottyback and basslet?:confused: If there was bullying from the bigger fish or compatibility issues related to a predisposition to be aggressive toward similar looking fish, they will have to be closely observed. I had LOTS of campatibilty issues when I first started out in a 29 gal. tank. The damsels can also be very aggressive depending on the species. :mad:
Some ideas: Before adding another fish, change the live rock around, so that the old tenants don't have a territory to protect. Therefore, less territorial. They are more confused about the newness of the hiding places so have less time to worry about the new kid on the block. :rolleyes:
Tip: Initail costs may be high, but it is worth your money to invest in good equipment from the start. A good submersible thermometer (top of the line) that lays on bottom with a power head over it to circulate the water temperature evenly in the tank will avoid fluctuating water temp for sensitive fish.
I'm sorry to hear about your dottyback and basslet. I try to get the pet shop to show me how they eat by feeding them at the store before I buy them. Sometimes they only feed them once a day in the evening and then only minimally so if you buy them before feeding time they arrive with less energy to fight the stress of a new adjustment.
I wouldn't be surprised if even the manderin was picking on the little dottyback, competing for the same food.:confused:

[benesh10]

I have these two fish cohabitating in my 180 gallon. They have been together over a year, however my mandarin was introduced fist. Just beware with the amount of fish you have the flame will have no choice but to compete for territory. This will create an aggressive fish.

[luciafam]

Hi, just got your post. We have since added the flame. It is still quite small. It has been very friendly and peaceful with the other fish. It doesn't compete for food with the other fish because it likes to eat algae off the rocks. The mandarin only eats the live copepods in our tank. I have noticed the flame eating some of the artic-pods that I bought and squirt in once a day. All the fish go crazy for those...except the mandarin! He only eats the live ones. But my tank is filled with live pods, so everyone is happy. We have a great group of fish that all get along. The only one that stays clear of the others is our orchid dottyback. It still is very shy and stays at the vacant end of the tank. That is the funny thing. We have all these fish and all this room in the tank and all the fish hang together at one end. I have all these fish sharing one third of the tank and the other two thirds has just one fish, the dottyback. Of course, the crabs and snails go all over. We are probably considered overstocked by most, but we think it is working well. We have a backup tank if we needed to move any out. But our water quality is good, all are eating well and there is not fighting or territorial wars. In fact, the fish all seem very bonded with each other and even rub up against each other and share sleeping spaces. Hopefully it continues this way!