Description
Green Mandarin Dragonet
The BIOTA Green Mandarin Dragonette (Synchiropus splendidus) is a bottom-dwelling creature that displays a wild mix of wavy patterns and beautiful bright colors–green, orange, red and blue making them one of the most sought after and attractive fish in the world (its distinctive blue pigments are unique to the genus).
Quick Stats
- Size at time of shipping: .75″ to 1″ length
- Current Diet: Live Copepods
- Can be Trained to Eat pellet and frozen food: Yes
- Fish AoA and 7 Day Guaranteed: Yes
Why Captive Bred Dragonets?
Our Biota Captive Bred Mandarins offer a hardy and sustainable alternative to wild-caught specimens with easier care requirements. Trained on a diet of live and frozen foods including Can O Cyclops, BeneReef by Benepets, PE Calanus, V2O Cyclops, frozen baby brine shrimp, live NanoBrine™ Brine Shrimp and 5280 Pods™ Live Copepods your mandarin dragonette can graze on pods during the day and then fatten up on frozen foods at feeding time. The Mandarin Dragonet will not accept frozen ADULT BRINE OR FULL SIZE MYSIS when they are first shipped. Once they have reached a larger size, they will accept adult brine and mysis.
Buy A Green Mandarin with Confidence
Every BIOTA Captive Bred Green Mandarin Dragonet we sell comes with a 100% Alive On Arrival Guarantee and a 7 Day Health Guarantee. While captive-bred fish are in general more adaptable to captive conditions, the difference between cultured and wild specimens of this species is considerable, as wild individuals much more frequently refuse food and starve to death. We make sure all fish are healthy and eating during an observation and conditioning period before offering them for sale. We will not sell a fish we wouldn’t buy ourselves!
*Overnight shipping is required on all orders containing live fish*
Failure to select overnight shipping at checkout will complicate and delay your order. This item requires overnight shipping and does not qualify for the free shipping over $40 service. Due to the extremely limited supply of our Biota Green Mandarin Dragonet, they are excluded from all sales, coupons, offers, PodPoints redemptions, or other discounts*
**Mandarin Dragonets are Shipped Directly from BIOTA Facilities and not from AlgaeBarn**
While this change in our policy is one that helps keep your fish under stress for less time and provides you the animals direct from the BIOTA facility, please note the following:
- While they are very good at the identification of their male and female dragonets over at the BIOTA facility, we cannot guarantee the gender of the Mandarin Dragonet at this time. Since these fish are small and the males can sometimes show aggression towards other males, their dorsal fin can sometimes be slightly damaged (which will heal with time). However, this means gender assessment is far more difficult for fish with any damaged dorsal fins.
- For all DOA claims, AlgaeBarn is your point of Contact, NOT BIOTA. Please reach out to AlgaeBarn for customer support.
Eric (verified owner) –
I got one of these little guys, he came well packaged. Also after settling in for a few days I caught him eating frozen brinshrimp. So they are set even at there small size to be ready to live a long and healthy life in our aquariums with out having to risk them starving to death or training them yourself. They also send a free thing of pods so during that settling in time he can eat his regular food.
Sean T –
Eric,
We are glad that they are eating frozen food! We really want the Mandarin fish to be a sustainable aquarium fish, similar to clowns! We really appreciate your review. Let us know if you have any questions!
Cheers,
The AlgaeBarn Team
court.godin (verified owner) –
Many thanks! My female blue mandarin dragonet is simply beautiful and she’s now acclimating very well in my quarantine system. She’s eagerly eating live copepods from the population I maintain in that tank as well as finely diced frozen foods and frozen copepod blends. She’s very active and the coloration is amazing!
Your packaging was excellent and she arrived seemingly with very little stress. I didn’t realize she would come with free pods and ocean magik which was awesome as I had just used up my previous pod club order so this was a great way to boost the pod count in the quarantine tank and introduce her to that tank.
Many thanks! I may get a bonded pair at some point in the future.
-Court G.
Bill Sutter –
These are exactly what they say, 3/4 inch long. I received mine and drip acclimated her. For the first day appeared to be doing well. But with all the live rock I have haven’t seen her again. I keep hoping she will show up but nothing so far. I would recommend starting them in a small tank with a small amount of live rock so that you can keep an eye on them until they get larger. Algae Barn has the best products. I cant ask for better service. Thank You
Dane (verified owner) –
Although shipping was fast, mine never accepted any prepared food while in QT. Unfortunately she didn’t make it a week in QT. There went $80…
Sean Tadjeran –
Dane,
We offer a 7 day health guarantee! Please reach out to us and we will get you taken care of.
Vivian (verified owner) –
I got a little female in December of 2017. She has done really well in my system. They do come very small, so my little girl took a trip from my refugium, through the separate sump and the return pump, into the main display. Then a week later she escaped the display through the overflow box, back to the sump. I put a sponge over the line from the refugium to the sump and have housed her in the refugium ever since her wild rides. Clearly these little captive bred fish are hardy if she could go through all of that and survive. I am letting her get bigger before I add her to the main display so she doesn’t go through the overflow box teeth again. She is doing great in my refugium and growing steadily on pods.
Heidi Clark –
I bought a pair of mandarins about three weeks ago. They really do arrive as small babies and I’ve kept them in a acclimation box, containing some rock rubble, inside my reef tank so I can monitor their feeding and keep them out of harms way until they grow a little more. I was prepared a head of time with the recommended food… frozen calanus, frozen brine, fresh hatched brine, TDO chroma b1 and b2 size and lastly added on my own, Reef Nutrition R.O.E. I’ve also added tens of thousands of pods to refugium and directly into the box and continue to hatch bobs daily. They are fed a little variety of food multiple times a day.
These lil captive bred mandarins are thriving and growing daily. They hunt all day and then sleep side by side when the light go out. Would advise for an experienced reefer and a mature tank. Good job Biota and thanks Algae Barn.
j.auskalnis (verified owner) –
While the description says your fish will be smaller than 1″, I wasn’t ready for just how tiny this thing was. First, I thought it might be dead, as it was curled up at the bottom of the jar. It wasn’t. Then, I figured this thing was going to die on its own, or get eaten by something in the tank. I put the fish in my tank in the evening, and within 20 minutes, it was scooting around picking off pods from rocks and gravel. At night, I figured the fish would hide. Nope. Picked a depressed spot in the sand bed right out in the open and laid there. It also lost most of it’s pigment, and turned a pale color to blend in.
Needless to say, the fish scoots around all day long picking off pods. I only started my tank in March, but have a fairly established refugium, no skimmer, and have been “feeding” the tank pods at least once a month. I know the description says it will eat other foods, but my fish has had zero interest in doing so. Perhaps because it’s natural food source is abundant?
Anyhow she’s growing quickly, and despite my fears, doesn’t appear to be at risk in my tank.
Stephen Smelski (verified owner) –
Arrived on time, well packaged. Very tiny fish, was eating Pods, and Can O’Cyclops. I had it in a Isolation box with pod soaked rocks and covered to shaddow the light away. Sadly, it only lived about 3 weeks. I can’t explain it, everything seemed to be going well. More money down the drain in this hobby for me.
Brett Edward Stout (verified owner) –
Mandarin in a BioCube 29. I very much wanted to have a mandarin for years. I’ve always stopped myself because the last thing I’d ever want is to harm one of these amazing creatures by not providing it with adequate living conditions. When I learned about captive bred mandarins, the possibility opened back up for me to have this fish I’ve always dreamed of having. I looked at all available options for getting a captive bred mandarin and found the best option was Algae Barn. The fact that Algae Barn not only carries these animals, but gives them time to ensure they are properly eating, and provides the foods they need to live happy long lives sold me. My mandarin has been living happy and growing from a baby in my nano When I put my feeding tube into the water, he swims over and immediately gobbles up food. He was perfectly acclimated and showed no signs of fear from the other tank inhabitants. Dealing with Algae Barn has been ideal and they have been prompt in asking my numerous questions through this entire process.
Jagtek04 (verified owner) –
Mine arrived sluggish but alive. These fish are tiny and only weeks old! Mine died today, after three weeks of babying it. I hatch live brine shrimp every 3 days and feed live brine daily. The mandarin never showed any interest in any food, live or frozen. My tank was seasoned for 6 months prior to purchasing the fish. I seeded the 50 gallon tank with 20k plus pods, and added more as I introduced the fish. I saw this fish on my rock work a grand total of once, the rest of it’s time was spent in the corner of the tank. It is irresponsible to being selling fish this young and saying they are conditioned to eating frozen food. If you toss it in the observation tank and see it move towards the food is that good enough? NO. I have seen adult mandarins who eat and respond to frozen food, and that was NOT my experience with this fish. To say the least I am not happy with my purchase and won’t be repeating it again. $200 wasted!
Deborah Rogers (verified owner) –
I bought my mandarin in Nov 2017 and he’s still going strong (as of Sept 2019). He did arrive very very tiny but immediately started eating and swimming around. My two clownfish tried to bully him for about a day, but then left him alone. My yasha goby ignores him unless the mandarin comes right up to his tunnel entrance. Mine has never eaten any frozen or prepared foods so I buy (4) jars of copepods every month from AlgaeBarn. Maybe overkill, but I want him to be as happy as possible. I have a Red Sea Max E-170 tank with 37 gal display tank.
joel dipietro (verified owner) –
Like other reviewers have said these fish are extremely small. Mine arrived healthy and is doing well so far 2 weeks later.
I give it a two stars because it has not shown any interest in eating prepared foods can o cyclops or even live nano brine shrimp which was the primary selling point. I have a 50 gallon with a 10 gallon refugium so hopefully he’ll have enough pods to sustain between pod orders.
Effectively since he won’t eat any prepared foods my particular fish ended up a $90 version and much smaller than one I could have gotten at the store for $20.
Josh Barrett (verified owner) –
Wanted the other reviews to be wrong.. they weren’t. Fish was actually larger then I expected. He lasted about 2 weeks, then starved to death. He constantly ate pods but this apparently is not enough to sustain them. The tank was preseeded with the 5000 mix. then another 5000 added when I added the fish. Added 2 jars of posidains feast a week ago. and yeah phyto daily. Still not enough. I also fed live baby brine and can o cyclops. did not eat those. I’m really disappointed that algae barn sells these as somehow easier. They are not. At the very least they could have a better guarantee being your paying 3x the price when the fish is every bit as picky as the 30 buck one from the lfs.
Miranda & John (verified owner) –
I have purchased 2 female green mandarins, the first was a little bigger than was advertised, we gave her baby brine shrimp while she was acclimating and she took right to them, no problem. After acclimating her to the tank, she disappeared and had not been seen at all since; after contacting customer service, there was nothing they could do. I decided to give it another shot and received my second female last week. She was A LOT smaller than the first female but also took to brine shrimp. We decided to keep her in a large breeders box with some hide-aways that way we can ensure she gets fed and until she grows to a size where she can be introduced to out other mandarins. She is not the best hunter but with a trick of putting a glass jar in her breeders box and releasing the baby brine shrimp/ copepods in the jar, she is feasting and growing everyday! She is a beautiful specimen and although we are upset on the loss of the first one, we are glad to have out second one 🙂
spgood (verified owner) –
Got a pair and both were tiny and acclimated well. I knew when I set up my tank I wanted Manderins so I set my refugium up with the Marine Pure Cubes, Chaeto and 5280 pods and my tank was crawling with them. I had a spare tank holding extra corals that was also loaded with the 5280 pods so I put them in there for quarentine. They were both happy and eating the pods, I’d occasionaly throw in some newly hatched baby brine shrimp and/or some Can O’ Cyclops which they mostly ignored, seems as if the pods are all they were really interested in. I’ve had them for 10 weeks now and both have chunked up nicely in the 6 weeks they’ve been in DT easily quadrupling in size and are now actively eating whatever comes close, frozen brine shrimp, Can O’ Cyclops or pods and seem to enjoy being in there with everybody else. Took them a couple of weeks to get out of their corner but they are now all over the tank exploring and feeding with the other fish.
Jessica Haviland (verified owner) –
I bought a mandarin from another website, I actually have bought 3 from the other website. The mandarins arrived almost dead, 1 did end up dying and after rebuying, it also died again. My male was the only one left. After acclimating him we decided to give up on a bonded pair. Months later that changed. Almost everything in our tank is bonded and we felt like we didn’t give him a fair chance. I ordered a small female from Algae Barn and this female is perfect. She arrived more alive and well taken care of than any fish I have received. She acclimated quickly and is dinning on copepods alive and happy. Now the courtship has begun and it is absolutely beautiful to see them bonded and happy. 10/10 recommend.
ALBERT (verified owner) –
Purchased 2 pairs and both died within 2 weeks. Never found the bodies of 2 bc they were SO SMALL
They are not large enough to be sold and it is criminal Feel bad for the fish
tonymutti –
I bought mine directly from BIOTA, but the same high quality fish. They are really tiny. Really, really, really tiny. I put the pair in my very established 120g with lots of live rock. I don’t see them too often because of how small they are, but 4 weeks later they are growing very quickly – nearly doubled in size. I’ve owned Mandarin’s in the past and these were the easiest. Right now they are only eating pieces of frozen food, and some tiny pellets I soak in sea water and feed pretty close to the fish. All good so far!
Llovane Garcia (verified owner) –
These mandarins are really tiny but worth the price and very hardy compared to the wild caught ones. My mandarin was less then an inch big when I got him and he is getting bigger each week. I still have not seen my mandarin eat pellets or brine shrimp but I do have plenty of copepods in my tank. I highly recommend getting a captive bred mandarin!