Raymo's 34g Tank Blog: Thinking About My Future Fish

I have a smaller tank (34 gallons with about 30 gallons of saltwater -- live rock & live sand displace the remaining volume); I, therefore, can add only a few fish and they need to be small fish, so I need to plan my live stock judiciously.

My favorite (and the favorite of a lot of aquarists) is the Green Mandarin Dragonet (Synchiropus Splendidus):

These fish, however, are difficult to feed. They prefer live food and a lot of it, so it can be difficult to have a food supply for the fish. Currently, they are wild caught. They grow up eating certain things in the wild and frozen food just doesn't do it for them. Most wild fish are not as picky, so the vast majority of wild caught fish put into aquaiurms adapt to a variety of convenient foods. Some aquarists are able to wean the Mandarin Dragonet off of live food to frozen food and are able to keep very healthy specimens for years, but from what I have read, a lot of these fish die of starvation. Also, although they are not endangered, some classify them as exploited and report the aquarium trade puts pressure on their populations. Here is an article that describes how they spear the fish in order to catch them: Mandarin Harvest Realities

The good news is that Oceans, Reefs, and Aquariums (ORA) has announced they will be selling captive bread Green Mandarins that will have been raised on frozen food. They plan to start selling them this summer. I hope to add a one (or maybe a male/female pair) down the road.

In the meantime, I used www.liveaquaria.com to research some potential candidates and I have narrowed it down to the following list. This is based on easy to care for fish that are safe with coral reefs and will do well in a tank that is a minimum of 40 gallons.

In order of interest:

Firefish