Green Mandarin Dragonet

Synchiropus splendidus

Also known as Mandarinfish, Mandarin Goby, Green Mandarin, Striped Mandarin

SaltwaterFish

Green Mandarin Dragonet (Synchiropus splendidus) — Luc Viatour · CC BY-SA 3.0

Care at a glance

Temperature: 75–81°F (24–27°C)
pH: 8.1–8.4
Adult size: 3.1 in (8 cm)
Minimum tank: 29 gal (110 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Solitary
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Difficult
Breeding: Hard
Rarity: Common
Reef safe: Reef safe
Origin: Western Pacific, from the Ryukyu Islands south through the Philippines and Indonesia to Australia and New Caledonia
Family: Callionymidae

Overview

A peaceful, slow-moving bottom forager that is beautiful but demanding. Its difficulty comes entirely from diet: it needs a constant supply of live copepods and amphipods, which means a well established tank (nine to twelve months old) with abundant live rock and usually a refugium or pod-dosing routine. Captive-bred and trained specimens that accept frozen and prepared foods are far easier and much preferred. It is completely reef safe, ignoring corals and inverts, but two males will fight so keep one male per tank.

In the wild

Mandarins live on sheltered inshore reefs and lagoons with plenty of rubble and coral, where they spend the whole day slowly hopping across the bottom picking at tiny crustaceans. They are constant foragers rather than swimmers. A mature reef with a large volume of live rock and live sand, ideally fed by a refugium, is what keeps them fed. They are slow, deliberate, and completely tied to the substrate and rockwork.

Good to know

Synchiropus splendidus is one of only two animal groups known to produce true blue pigment from cellular pigment rather than structural light scattering, giving its blue an unusual depth. It has no scales and instead secretes a thick, bitter-tasting mucus that deters predators and parasites. Males are larger with a tall, elongated first dorsal spine.

Did you know

During courtship a pair rises together off the reef at dusk, hovering belly to belly, then releases eggs and sperm in a single upward burst before darting back to the bottom.