The pair of ORA Spotted Mandarins (Synchiropus picturatus) I received earlier this year has been caught going through the motions, but as of yet, they have not consummated their relationship.  Typical teenagers…as you can clearly see in the video above, they haven’t quite figured it out yet.  It should come as no surprise that with captive-bred mandarins taking up to a year to reach market size, they start getting mature urges soon after.  Since the release of ORA’s first Spotted Mandarins earlier this year, there have been multiple reports of courtship and mating behavior among the F1 captive bred generation. Get more steamy details after the break!

We’d like to point out that these ORA captive-bred Mandarins continue to be fed solely prepared foods, and after several months in a 10 gallon QT tank, were moved to a 37 gallon holding tank where they have settled in extremely well among a spawning pair of Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns (Premnas biaculeatus), a spawning pair of Bundoon Blennies (Mieacanthus bundoon), and a “hopefully-one-day” pair of Harlequin Filefish (Oxymonacanthus longirostris).  After months of care, we are happy to report that as predicted, the captive-bred ORA Mandarins do extremely well provided they are given common sense considerations for their care requirements.

While my pair of ORA captive-bred Spotted Mandarins (Synchiropus picturatus) is likely still figuring it out, Dustin Dorton of ORA recently relayed that, “We have been getting fertilized eggs from several F1 pairs for a few months now. It’s amazing how many eggs such a small fish can produce.  We haven’t attempted to raise any yet though, no room for more mandarins in grow out.  We might give it a shot in a couple more weeks.”

You know what we call that?  We call talk like that a challenge.  Consider this the starting gun firing — who’s going to be the first to rear F2, second-generation Mandarins from ORA’s 2010 releases?  If you do, we want to know about it.