Green Mandarin Care

[Dissy]

Hey, many thanks webersp, Tankstudy... I will try my best, sounds like an interesting job to grow pods ;-) . Question for Dissy, how did you gain your experience in this hobby, probably not by returning any fish that was a challenge, whats with the grumpy attitude? Sure, reading up before buying sounds like a great idea and I usually do but it's not always practical when the fish store never has what you are looking for and as a mom of 2 small kids I get to go to the fish store maybe once or twice a quarter (alone), not even talking about the time I need afterwards in order to acclimate a fish if I buy one. So sometimes I just want to think the guys in the fish store want their customers to return happily and that they actually tell you their expert opinion. I am still hoping that this mandarin is actually trained to eat frozen food (altough I realize that chances are small). Hey, lets see what happens, maybe I get to give advice about mandarins in a year from now, ha ha. Thanks again!

Not grumpy at all - sorry if you think so.. Mandarins just aren't one of the "figure it out as you go" fish, mostly because they're more than half starved by the time your fish store gets them.

I was never going to get one, because I'd read everything possible about them, and knew they'd be hit or miss, at best. Then I had one look at me while floating upside down with her head cocked, and I got sucked in. Luckily I knew enough to know that she's be fine in my tank, would have no competition for food whatsoever, but training her to eat anything in addition to pellets is a slooooow process, and her belly still isn't as filled out as I'd like it to be after a month, so I'm still worried she isn't going to make it, despite the fact that she seems great.

No offense meant.

 

[agruetz]

Not grumpy at all - sorry if you think so.. Mandarins just aren't one of the "figure it out as you go" fish, mostly because they're more than half starved by the time your fish store gets them.

I was never going to get one, because I'd read everything possible about them, and knew they'd be hit or miss, at best. Then I had one look at me while floating upside down with her head cocked, and I got sucked in. Luckily I knew enough to know that she's be fine in my tank, would have no competition for food whatsoever, but training her to eat anything in addition to pellets is a slooooow process, and her belly still isn't as filled out as I'd like it to be after a month, so I'm still worried she isn't going to make it, despite the fact that she seems great.

No offense meant.

Give it time, if it is eating it should be good. Mine took a good month and a half to put back on what I would call normal weight levels. Now he runs around fat and happy.

 

[ssdawood]

Alot of people have been successful to train mandarins to eat prepared foods. I did buy a cheap 15 dollar mandarin and trained it in a week to eat frozen foods. The trick is patience.

Start with live brine shrimp, something about the movement that the mandarin likes. Once she starts taking live brine move her over to frozen brine shrimp. Remember to turn all powerheads off and feed her with the sea squirt. If she doesnt eat the first time keep following her around.

Soon she will recognize the shape of brine and eat it. It only took me a week to train mine. Now she eats everything Frozen brine, mysis, live black worms and frozen black worms.

She does not like cyclopeze and pellets.

Hope this helps dont give up bro.

 

[35galSaltwater]

Thanks for all the cool ideas. The mandarin is still not going after the frozen food, at least not from what I can tell, same with the spot fed Nutra Ova. She runs from the pipette and feeding syringe. I haven't tried life brine since she even runs from life pods that are spot fed. She searches the tank and picks up particles constantly, so maybe she does eat some.

The refugium didn't produce any copepods, after one week nothing moved in there anymore, maybe the drip was too high and flushed them all into the main tank, maybe the water is "too clean" and the pods starved? My separate 10 gal tank with saltwater, pebbles, and sunlight however is perfect breeding ground for the pods but unfortunately also for algae. Question is how to get the pods from there to my main tank without transferring the nastyness??? Today, I used the filter sponge that came with my last order of pods from reefs2go. I held a flashlight to the glass of the 10 gal tank, the pods accumulated near the light, I caught many with the sponge, let the bad water run through as much as possible (not squeesing it out) and transferred it to the first of my 3 refugium compartments. There is 2 small life rocks in each compartment and macroalgae in 2 compartments, so hopefully some of the nasty water is still naturally filtered? Any better suggestions?

By the way, the feeding jar isn't working, the hermit crabs have a party in there, the mandarin doesn't go in. Does anybody have an idea how to set it up?

Thanks again, she still looks normal, maybe still eating enough pods.

 

[35galSaltwater]

No need to train Mandarin if you breed pods

No need to train Mandarin if you breed pods

Just an update, still no luck with training her to accept any frozen shrimp or other diet. How do guys feel about just keeping up with the copepods since those are really easy to breed? I have been adding a sponge full (probably 20 to 40 adults and who knows how many eggs or juveniles since they are too small to see) every 1 to 2 days.