Do mandarins eat copepods, amphipods, or both?

[cherubfish pair]

Do mandarins eat copepods, amphipods, or both?

 

[Dmorty217]

+1^ Both and some are lucky enough to eventually train them to eat prepared foods of one kind or another

 

[snorvich]

Mandarins will eat frozen food if they can capture it with other fish being aggressive competitors. No training is needed.

 

[noy]

definitely both. Mine eats anything including pellets.

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[Dmorty217]

Mandarins will eat frozen food if they can capture it with other fish being aggressive competitors. No training is needed.

I stand corrected, I have never seen one at the store eat frozen

 

[campos]

definitely both. Mine eats anything including pellets.

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mine also eats frozen as well as flakes. I wish I could get him to eat pellets but I'm not complaining.

 

[snorvich]

Eating pellets is not as universal, but I have had some that do.

 

[cherubfish pair]

Now are you all talking ocean caught or just captive bred?

 

[reepher315]

I cant wait to get a mandarin. Such cool looking fish waiting on my copepod population to increase. Noy, might I ask what kind of tang that was eating with the mandarin? Not sure if that is your or not or if that was infact a tang...

 

[noy]

There was an orange shoulder, and then a hippo IIRC, watched it a couple days ago

yep, orange shouldered tang and followed by a hippo and the yellow tang at the end.

I got mine to eat pellets after he would watch the tangs eat the pellets and he would get curious and eventually steal one or two. I initially used the tube to get his attention (I would tap the tube against the side of the tank to make a noise - bit of a Pavlov response) and to make sure he would get some. I don't use the tube anymore - its a free for all now - he will get a few pellets in. When I feed he darts to areas where pellets get trapped and scoop a few on the Tangs.

I think if you have other pellet eating fish and use a tube to feed so they have to pick the pellets off the bottom (vs. in the water column) - the mandarin will get curious and start to try to pick off a few pellets. I think NLS pellets are the best because of the high krill content and smell - they definitely notice it right away.

 

[snorvich]

Now are you all talking ocean caught or just captive bred?

Ocean caught. My experiences with captive bred was very negative.

 

[ajt12]

I picked up a juvenile Mandarin at Petco a couple of months ago. I feed it a combo of R.O.E. and frozen copepods. I turn flow off for 20 minutes so it can feed. It was underweight when I bought it and now it looks great and is much more active.

 

[reepher315]

Thanks for that info havent seen that type yet. Good to see mandarins and tangs can get along I was worried about that.

 

[mcfa2403]

Have you seen the ruby red dragonets (moyer's red dragonet)? I have two in my 60 that both ate frozen from day one, and locally everyone seems to have the same success with these guys eating.

 

[Dmorty217]

Thanks for that info havent seen that type yet. Good to see mandarins and tangs can get along I was worried about that.

Tangs only have issues with similar sized/colored fish usually. My Desjaradini hated my one spot foxface and vice versa when they hit about 6"

 

[Betta132]

Quite a few hard-to-feed fish will actually eat anything they can fit in their mouths. The problem is getting them to realize it's food and not just a random object.