Could a mandarin survive on frozen food?

[Jiggz]

i know that u need a lot of pods to support these guys but wut if one was eating frozen? could he survive or would he still need a lot of pods to thrive? my lfs has two of them eating frozen mysis, i asked to see and sure enough they were eating it. i was thinking of getting it if it could survive off frozen cuz i only have a 50gallon with about 60#'s of lr and no refugium. thanks.

 

[marrone]

Some people have gotten them to eat flake food and mysis and live. The problem is some times they eat it and then spit it out. It also hard to tell if it's enough to keep them alive long term. A lot of them just go on eating it and then one day just die. It would help if you did have some pods in the tank and have it eat both.

 

[Sk8r]

I'd look up pod culture (a lot of live rock on the sand helps) and try to get some going in the tank if you undertake them: it would certainly be a good supplement and failsafe.

 

[jda]

If they are actually eating it, then they can live. They cannot likely live on Brine Shrimp. If you can get them to eat flake, that would be good too.

 

[stykthyn]

they dont live very well on frozen food. I bought one that was eating frozen brine and mysis an figured since it was eating frozen foods I would put it in a tank with no pod growth. sadly it started wasting away. I eventually put him into the refugium of my reef. I still feel bad about this.

 

[MiddletonMark]

Even if they eat prepared - this is a fish that eats constantly all day long - supplying regular small meals might be difficult.

I would also say, getting them to eat prepared foods, regularly, is very difficult.