Advice regarding starved mandarin

[MattG]

I was at a buddies house and noticed his mandarin was emaciated. I offered to take it in hopes of helping it recover.

Anyways my tanks 215 gallons with a 75 gallon sump (25 of which is a Refugium). Tanks been up for 1.5 years and the pod population is huge. I currently have a female mandarin in the display that is plump and happy.

The mandarin I got from my buddy is male. It's as skinny of a fish as I've seen in my life. The back half of its body is literally paper thin. It's entire body and face are sunken in beyond what I've ever seen.

I have it in my Refugium currently. It's eating pods but not as fast as I'd like to see. Maybe one every 30 seconds. I have it eating frozen brine and am going to start mixing in mysis slowly.

My question is I think it's going to put a large dent inthe pod population in the Refugium in a short time since its only 25ish gallons. If u were me would u keep it in the fuge where I can target feed it or move it to the display once I notice a decrease in the pods. I'm also worried about the other mandarin picking on him since she is established and fat!

So Refugium with less pods but i can target feed? Or
Display with all the pods he wants but can't be target fed and potentially harassed by my female?

I've had the male about 5 days now and it seems to be much more active then it was in the other guys tank and initially in my Refugium. I realize at some point it will have to go into the display or be rehomed.

Thoughts?

 

[ilikefish34]

refugium

refugium

hello

i would definitely keep him in the refugium so that you can target feed him. as you suggested, this will keep him from being harassed and will also give you the opportunity to get him acclimated to eating prepared foods. i worked in a lfs in my early twenties and more often mandarins and dragonets would come in emaciated. i would keep them in a multi-cubical aquarium (8'' x 10'' per unit) and would feed them 5-6 times per day on well-fed brine shrimp until they were filled out. also, i would throw in some frozen mysis and blood worms and had a large success of weaning them on the prepared foods. you can also by the live pods to the existing refugium to give him something to constantly graze on.

lastly, i know you got him from a friend but not sure the tank conditions he came from. being that skinny, it might not just be the lack of pods in his previous home, he made need to be put into qt and treated for internal parasites.

i can certainly relate to taking in the weak and trying to build them back up. good luck.

 

[ilikefish34]

"more often than not" and "buy" live pods.

sorry, those things bother me.

 

[snorvich]

Good advice above, most will take frozen mysis and that is the quickest way to fatten them up. Your tank should be large enough to support two but let the new one recover for a while before adding to the DT.

 

[MattG]

Thanks! I'll keep him in the sump for th next month or so and re-evaluate