Mandarin Dragonet

Care Summary

The Mandarin Dragonet is one of the most beautiful fish in the hobby and one of the most frequently killed; most die of starvation because their tank cannot sustain enough live copepods. The minimum requirement is a mature reef of 29+ gallons with an established, prolific copepod population supplied by a large, heavily seeded refugium; without this infrastructure the fish will be dead within 3 months. Some mandarins can be trained to eat frozen mysis over time, but this should be viewed as a supplement to live prey, not a replacement; even trained mandarins need copepod-rich systems. Add only one mandarin per system and add it last; it needs every available copepod and competition from other pod-eating fish like small wrasses will push it into starvation faster.