$ for a prepared food eating Madarin?

[kfowler]

I've been following some of the work people have been doing to try and get Mandarins to eat prepared food like roe, mysis, and pellets. It currently seems like it's a real hit or miss if the mandarin will eat prepared food.

A LFS had Mandarins on sale for $7.99 each. Normally $20. Although dirt cheap, I would guess that the mortality rate is very high due to starvation. So I started to wonder, what would you be willing for pay for a Mandarin that was already weened on to prepared food. Let's say someone perfected the art of weening Mandarins and held them for say a month or two to get them fat and healthy before selling. How much would you be willing to pay? $50, $75, $100.

Personally, I would seriously consider paying a $100 for IMO one of the most spectacular colored fish. Of course the fish would have to come with some kind of guarantee that it would eat prepared food.

What do you think?

 

[drjuice28]

Funny, I was just thinking about this yesterday. If I saw one on display that the lfs put on a feeding demo of, and that looked super fat and happy, I'd pay 60-70. That's 300% the normal retail. Don't know that I'd go so high as 100$ though!

 

[Bmgrocks]

Sushi Roe, is redily accepted by some AKA sushi Eggs, read an article in Marine fish, on Mandarins being kept in Nanos with success on Roe, availible at Asian Markets. Make sure its in water, not vinegar, or salt added..I will let you know once i try it out....

want to finish adding more corals then I'm going to add a Mandarin to a 29, with a Fuge full of pods, (Emergency) and Roe!

will let you know how it goes.

 

[kfowler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9331594#post9331594 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Bmgrocks
Sushi Roe, is redily accepted by some AKA sushi Eggs, read an article in Marine fish, on Mandarins being kept in Nanos with success on Roe, available at Asian Markets. Make sure its in water, not vinegar, or salt added..I will let you know once i try it out....

want to finish adding more corals then I'm going to add a Mandarin to a 29, with a Fuge full of pods, (Emergency) and Roe!

will let you know how it goes.

Actually I'm in the process of trying this now. I have a Mandarin in a 20g. There are no other pod eating fish and I have a 10gal fuge. However, the goal is to ween the Mandarin totally off of pods. Most of what I'm trying is based off of Joshua Day's article and Melev's experience.

Funny, I spent $7.99 on the Mandarin and already almost $50 on food between Tigger Pods, Cyclopeeze, and Flying Fish Roe. The roe was the cheapest. Only $4.00 at local Chinese market.

So far, it does appear that the Mandarin is eating the roe. I think I'll have a better idea of how he's doing in another week from his stomach size. I've been keeping a log so I'll let you know how things go.

 

[Doglover_50]

I got lucky, my mandarin started eating everything right away--just have to turn off powerheads, otherwise he can't catch it. He even goes for flakes.

I think the idea of "weaning mandarin off pods" is grossly misguided. Have you considered that weaning the fish off its natural food source may result in illness or premature death?
You are in uncharted territory there, for what reason? If you have the fuge and pods, why not keep it for a healthy fish?

 

[kfowler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9332815#post9332815 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Doglover_50
I got lucky, my mandarin started eating everything right away--just have to turn off powerheads, otherwise he can't catch it. He even goes for flakes.

I think the idea of "weaning mandarin off pods" is grossly misguided. Have you considered that weaning the fish off its natural food source may result in illness or premature death?
You are in uncharted territory there, for what reason? If you have the fuge and pods, why not keep it for a healthy fish?

The idea is to be able to keep a Mandarin in a nano. Even with a fuge, I don't believe a nano can keep up with enough pods to feed a healthy Mandarin. As far as "natural diet", few fish are fed their natural diet in captivity. We come up with diets that may be a good substitute. This is also not uncharted territory. I'm trying to build off of what others have already done.

 

[Bmgrocks]

We are trying to keep a wild animal in captive conditions. Keep in mind that with space restrictions found in NANOS, that it is unnatrual to everything we keep, our corals per square inch is even un natrual in some cases

by coming up with different ways to maintain a healthy ecosystem, changes must be made. If that includes feeding food not natrually found in the wild, but still promoting good health, than i don't think its a problem.

 

[Doglover_50]

I agree--if you know what non natural foods promote good health, go with it--that's what high quality flakes are all about.
But certain fish MUST have certain foods. If yaa'l keep tangs, you know what I mean. A tang will gobble frozen food or flakes, but without nori/brown seaweed, a tang is highly likely to get lateral line or other diseases. Because it has nutrients from a tang's natural diet.
So my point was just in response to your statement: "the goal is to ween the Mandarin totally off of pods." Thta's quite different than a strategy of SOME natural foods (pods) by keeping your system as is in a small tank and some supplement with roe, etc...

Judging by the responses, or lack thereof, your suggestion of pod-free diet for a mandarin does seem to be without precedent, though I'm interested to see if other posters chime in who have tried such things, or maybe a review of the articles you referenced.

Of course, the other standard would be: If we put mandarins in fish tanks with pods and they can survive (making this up) 3 or 4 years, the standard of comparison would be: how long can mandarins last on a non-pod diet in a nano? The debate it seems to me should NOT be over how well/how long the fish lasts in the wild vs. an aquarium, but compared to the standard recommended tank size/LR/pods for a mandarin in captivity.

I realize you may succeed and thus push an evelope. It's just a bit sad that in our zeal to push the envelope with nanos, animals are going to die, not due to incompetence, but rather to competent people pushing the envelope for the sake of pushing the envelope. And I know the reef community learns in the long run, but the question seems to me: if you'd really like a mandarin, why not buy someone's used system for a few hundred bucks that meets the general standards for what a mandarin needs with LR/pod population.

And finally, here's a suggestion related to how valuable a mandarin is that eats prepared food is to us: Rather than potentially kill mandarins via starvation to experiment with nanos, maybe you or some LFS could ship in a bunch of mandarins from the wild, feed and observe, and mark and sell them as "Pods only" for large tanks or "eats prepared foods" for smaller tanks. Wow, that's a million dollar idea!

 

[Reno Reef]

My normal feeding for my 33G consists of frozen Bloodworms, frozen cyclops, frozen brine shrimp, and a scoop of reef chili. My mandarin has eaten all of them from day 2 of being in the tank

I leave the power heads on and the stuff blowing through the tank seems to allow him to retain his hunting instincts, because he seems to go after things a little more aggressively once it is being blown around by a PH.

 

[Doglover_50]

Interesting. I leave my powerheads on too, but mine will only go after something (and get it) it if hits an eddy and slows down. Otherwise, when the food zooms by, he follows it for a second, then gives up.