Green Mandarin Dragonet

About this fish

The Green Mandarin Dragonet is a saltwater goby (Synchiropus splendidus) for the home reef aquarium. It’s appreciated for its peaceful nature and active foraging behavior, but it has a very specialized feeding style—making it best suited to established tanks with abundant live microfauna. In practice, it’s used as a colorful, interesting addition to compatible reef setups where the tank is mature enough to support its copepod-focused diet, often with help from a refugium for sustained food availability.

Features:

• Peaceful temperament: a generally compatible choice for many reef community tanks
• Foraging behavior: often perches on rocks or corals and searches the tank for small foods
• Diet specialized around live copepods, so it typically performs best in a mature aquarium
• Refugium-friendly: extra live copepods in the system can help support longer-term feeding
• Jump risk: a tight lid is important to help prevent escape
• Acclimate slowly and provide a calm settling area when it arrives

Specifications:

• Scientific name: Synchiropus splendidus
• Common category: Gobies & Blennies
• Care level (general guidance): Moderate; commonly best in established tanks due to live copepod feeding needs
• Temperament: Peaceful
• Diet: Live copepods; small frozen foods such as mysis and copepods may be offered once feeding is established
• Tank maturity guidance: Best in a mature tank with plentiful copepods; a refugium can help
• Tank cover: Tight lid recommended (may jump)
• Offered sizes: Large; Small-Medium