FF#30 | Keeping Dragonets (Mandarinfish) in your Reef Tank 

Hehe agreed Barbara, they are simply amazing!

Well that sounds very good, seems like you should have a very good opportunity of keeping them! Forgot to mention it in the video but having a fuge will definitely help with keeping dragonets!

Thank you very much Don! I have kept them for about a year until they perished/disappeared. Just were gone one day and never showed up...

Two shouldn't be a problem but I think it's better to keep one pair instead of two different species where you buy one of each. Your choice though :-)

how old is your tank?

They are really cute but also need to be fed a lot. They are indeed amazing creatures to watch! Mating game is epic indeed, seen it once or twice :)

@@DutchReefer can't wait! thankyou, great video

would you say that they are for "experts only?" i was thinking about one tan with sea horses, and one with puffer or cowfish, BUT i am not an expert. i work very hard, but am not an expert...what do you think. i dont look at them as fish. i lost my beloved dog daisy just this morning. she died in her sleep, and i am a wreck, i was the same way when i lost my pleco. i had had him since he was tiny. i loved him like i love my other pets. he was not just a fish....after losing him i havent even filled any of my tanks yet, and it has been 2-3 years! i do want to fill a basic tank with feeder goldfish. Petsmart and Petco buy too frigging many and they crowd the tanks gasping for air. 1st i raise hell! with managers, while talking loudly, getting corporate numbers ect...then i take 100-200-3oo fish out of there....i really want toget help on this...****CAN you help me with ideas???i live in the stix in texas and have a small man made pond. by small i mean 300 feet by 300 feetish. how can or could i aerate it? can i buy a pump and just boat it out to the middle and sink it? what could i do to get that pond safe for goldfish???? i want to put mosquito fish in there toom maybe some KOI. is it possible????

Yeah considering I lost them as well I'd say they're definitely expert-only, or at least have a reef setup that exactly suits their needs. Very sad to hear about your dog :( my condonleances! I'm sorry but I don't have any experience with ponds, so you'd better ask someone with more knowledge about that!

@@DutchReefer yea i looked into the pond thing and i am not going to do it. t seems the only right way to do it is to make the setup before the pond is filled with water. here in the south many people with acreage have ponds dug out, and either ain or the spigot fills them the one time, then they add fish that dont need the pump ect...fishing pole fish :) so nope i wont have w working pond. IF we ever have a drought again, and it dries out completely i will rush and do it. this happened one time in 11 years, so it may happen thanx for the input. i wont get any fish that i dont think i can handle, and i only get captive bred. i dont want to steal fish from the ocean and cause many others to die in the process. :)

Aww reading this makes me sad as well... I hope you find a way to make it work in the future :-(

Haha yeah it's definitely a trap where you keep convincing yourself that enough is enough and then... Haha!

@@DutchReefer have you made a starter reef series i can't find videos about it in your channel maybe i didn;t look back enough to my knowledge all i really need is a tank and a protein skimmer with rock and sand as my biological filter. then the right lighting for corals correct? is there a solution that helps not use the rodi like how there is a dechlorinater is there something that does reverse osmosis like a solution that can be mixed instead of setting up an rodi unit?

@@MrDon967 Well not specifically for starters but my latest series Reef Keeping 101 does try to explain a lot more in detail, also basic stuff. You are completely right, live rock and a protein skimmer are the basics, together with good lighting. RoDi units are the only ones I know of to be safely used on reef tanks. Cheers!

Well the males certainly are more beautiful, but they look very much alike. Keeping a couple is always better though!

@@DutchReefer I see. Thanks for the observation. Will keep my eyes peeled for one.

That's and Equetus Punctatus! There's a video on it on my channel :-)

no they will fight in any tank under 6ft

That's a sarcophyton leather coral!

Nope the drum is super friendly towards all creatures up until now :-)

This one was about 140g!

Hi, I have a 500L tank!

Hi Tas, ouch that's not good. Mine eat whatever they can find and are very adapted to tank life. you could try to turn off your pumps and target feed it with a turkey blaster, that's the easiest way to get them to eat without disturbing them too much

Oof that's a shame :(

Lawnmower Blennies are cool too (I have one as well) but they are different from Mandarinfish/Dragonets. So it's a completely different fish with a different diet :-)