How to train a mandarin goby to eat mysis and pellets?

F

fishforu

New member
Interested in keeping a blue mandarin goby in an established 5 years old 30 gallons cube tank with no refugium and 45 lbs of live rock.

Is there a procedure with a high chance to successfully train a mandarin goby to eat mysis and or pellets instead of amphipods?

Is it best to try it with an adult or juvenile, male or female?

Thanks.
 
I did it a few years ago but got lucky. The best piece of advice I can give you is make sure the mandarin can get to the food. They are slow fish and can get beaten to the food by most other fish.
 
I would start with this article, that is where we started:

http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/resources.asp?show=351

I would start with a good healthy mandarin that is nice and fat in the LFS. We started with essentially quarantining the mandarin and getting it to feed on frozen with the above techniques. Be prepared to spend a lot of money on copepods if you don't have a refugium to supplement the fish's diet. You might also want to look at adding a refugium, we have used the CPR hang on backs for years with success. If you can't add one at least create a rubble pile that no fish can get into. This way the pods can breed and hide in there and will slowly come out. Live blackworms is another food I would try to help ween them. It takes patience and money to get them switched over, but once they do you can have them for years.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Unfortunately, I have no space in the back of the tank for a large hang-on refugium.

However, would a small in-tank refugium be enough? Better than nothing?

I thought about placing the mandarin in a floating breeder box and pepper it with a variety of food until it eats.

What's the longest it can tolerate/survive confined in the breeder box?
(6.5" x 4" x 3.5")

Thanks.
 
That really depends on the mandarin, that is why i would recommend a fat healthy one from the LFS to give yourself a bit of time. If you have a thin one from the LFS then not a long time at all.
 
MikeandNicole said:
I would start with this article, that is where we started:

http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/resources.asp?show=351

I would start with a good healthy mandarin that is nice and fat in the LFS. We started with essentially quarantining the mandarin and getting it to feed on frozen with the above techniques. Be prepared to spend a lot of money on copepods if you don't have a refugium to supplement the fish's diet. You might also want to look at adding a refugium, we have used the CPR hang on backs for years with success. If you can't add one at least create a rubble pile that no fish can get into. This way the pods can breed and hide in there and will slowly come out. Live blackworms is another food I would try to help ween them. It takes patience and money to get them switched over, but once they do you can have them for years.
Click to expand...



Could you elaborate on the cpr hang on back refugium idea for me? Very interested
 
Just depends on the individual. Mine just started pickin at the mysis as it drifted by him one day
 
It does depend on the mandarin. Sometimes you can find ones that eat live brine in the store. I got one that did and vitamin enriched the live brine and used this sea squirt to target feed. http://www.marinedepot.com/Kent_Marine_Nautilus_Sea_Squirt_Feeding_Prong_Fish_Food_Tongs_Prongs-Kent_Marine-KM2711-FIFDFETP-vi.html

after about a week she understood that food came from the squirt and now she will pick at mysis and rods food. she still loves the live brine though. luckily I still have tons of pods too. I just like to supplement feed.
 
Pacificcoast said:
Could you elaborate on the cpr hang on back refugium idea for me? Very interested
Click to expand...

We don't have a sump so we purchased a CPR HOB refugium. We put live sand, live rock, and chaeto on there. We turn the pump off and add pods directly to that. This give them a place to reproduce and slowly get released into the tank. This way the mandarin does get live food but does not completely destroy the population. We poured A LOT of pods in there just to make sure if they were not taking frozen, they had live food.
 
i bought a mandrin eating live brine, it soon ate dead brine as well. mysis was introduced and gradually was accepted. the fish ate everything for over a year then quit eating and died. the tank had a fair amont of pods and was supplimented w/live pods. it's my favorite fish, and i won't do it again. it's not that it can't be done, it can. a 30 cube is just about the worst possible tank scenario. these fish are great at slowly starving in much larger and more stable conditions.
 
If you put him in a breeder box, he will probably be too stressed to eat. Definitely not a good way to try to train a mandarin.

Mandarins starve very slowly over months. Many that eat dead food dont survive in such small tanks because they are fish that are supposed to eat constantly, not one or twice a day. I would just wait until you have an established bigger tank with a refugium.
 
I wouldn't consider it unless it were the only fish in the tank. What are you going to do if it doesn't work? And work is the word here...this will be an ongoing process. You might consider getting some tukas, also ;)
 
Very good read, thanks for posting!

Many people have success with feeding mandarins, the problem is competing fish and dedication of the aquarist. They are such slow, deliberate eaters - check out this video of a mandarin feeding frenzy and imagine what would happen if you put practically any other fish in there with them

<object width="640" height="390">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/aZEGItO4zZU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="390"></object>
 
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