Scientific Name:
Synchiropus splendidus, Synchiropus picturatus
Other Common Names for the Green Mandarin Dragonet:
Other Common Names for the Green Mandarin Dragonet:
Green Mandarin Dragonet, Mandarinfish, Or Mandarin Dragonet
Other Common Names for the Yellow Mandarin Dragonet:
Spotted Mandarinfish, Picture Dragonet Mandarinfish, Or Target Mandarinfish
Description:
The Green Mandarinfish can be found in the Pacific ocean around the Ryukyu islands to the south of Australia. It features a beautiful pattern of green, orange, and blue all over it's body with bright orange and blue fins.
The Yellow Mandarinfish is found in the Indo West Pacific from eastern Indonesia to Northwest Australia. It features a beautiful pattern of black, orange, and blue spots over it's body with a beautiful green coloration on it's body.
They can grow up to 3" in length and requires a 30 Gallon or larger aquarium with plenty of hiding spaces, live rock, and sand.
Diet:
The Mandarin Goby likes to feed on live foods like copepods and amphipods but can also eat frozen foods like brine and mysis shrimp. In the wild these fish are constantly hunting for their food and can eat hundreds of copepods in a day.
Some Mandarins will refuse to eat anything but live copepods and amphipods but some can be adapted to eating prepared frozen foods. They are less likely to contract marine ich because they don't have the typical skin type that is affected by the disease.
Behavior:
As stated earlier, a Mandarin Goby can grow up to 3" in length and requires a 30 Gallon or larger aquarium with plenty of hiding spaces, live rock, and sand. They are peaceful fish that show aggression unless to other fish from the same species. They stay near the bottom of the aquarium hunting the substrate for food and will do this most of the time. They can eat from 5000-10000 pods every day, making this a hard fish to keep in some aquariums due to low copepod populations.