Blue Mandarin

Synchiropus splendidus

The Blue Mandarin, also commonly referred to as Green Mandarin, is a member of the family Callionymidae, the Dragonets, and grows to a maximum length of 4. They originate in the Western Pacific from the Ryukyu Islands to Australia. In the wild, they are found on silty bottoms with coral and rubble. In the aquarium, its best to provide them with plenty of rockwork in which to hunt and hide.

Blue Mandarins exhibit beautiful ribbon-like patterns of royal blue and green, peach and red. They can be kept in mated pairs or singly.

As they grow all captive-bred mandarins will accept a variety of prepared frozen and dry foods once established. As Captive-Bred mandarins tend to arrive very small, it’s important to feed them a prepared food that is appropriately sized for them.Even when you have a captive-bred mandarin that is accepting prepared foods in your tank the majority of its diet will still bethe naturally occurring live copepods found among the live rock in your tank and it’s important to ensure there is plenty of copepods for them to hunt.