Mandarin Diner (Olive Jar)

[webersp]

Hello,

I have a 29 gallon reef tank that's currently home to two clownfish and a mandarin goby. The tank has been set up for about two years. I purchased the goby at one of the LFS in my area. When purchased, the goby was eating Mysis and Cyclops, but he doesn't seem to be eating them anymore. He still moves around just fine, but he's lost weight. I was thinking about trying the Mandarin Diner method from Melev's reef, and I was wondering if anybody had had experience with this method and knew how much it would pollute my tank water?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

Never tried the cafe method but it sounded good.
I'll be interested in hearing how well it works for you.

 

[webersp]

Never tried the cafe method but it sounded good.
I'll be interested in hearing how well it works for you.

Hoping that it works well enough that the goby makes it. He was eating the mysis and cyclops that I put in for awhile, but he seems to have stopped inexplicably. If I overfeed I'll still see him pick it off the rocks, but that's obviously not a long term solution.

 

[rhdoug]

I used that method for 3 years with my mandarin, it worked great until anthias spooked him out of the jar and claimed it for their own roosting spot. Good luck with yours.

 

[webersp]

I used that method for 3 years with my mandarin, it worked great until anthias spooked him out of the jar and claimed it for their own roosting spot. Good luck with yours.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Did the jar method pollute your fish tank any? How long did it take for the goby to figure it out? And did you use pellet food or some sort of frozen?

Thanks again!

 

[rhdoug]

The little bit of food in the jar wouldn't make a dent compared to the amount of food that goes into my tank everyday, I feed a frozen mix via turkey baster multiple times per day.

The mandarin had already figured out that food came out of the turkey baster, and would eat mysis etc directly from the tip of the baster. I just led him over to the jar with the baster, and once there squirted food into the jar. He was eating out of it a few minutes later. He would sit in there and wait for the food to come. He was a great fish.

 

[webersp]

The little bit of food in the jar wouldn't make a dent compared to the amount of food that goes into my tank everyday, I feed a frozen mix via turkey baster multiple times per day.

The mandarin had already figured out that food came out of the turkey baster, and would eat mysis etc directly from the tip of the baster. I just led him over to the jar with the baster, and once there squirted food into the jar. He was eating out of it a few minutes later. He would sit in there and wait for the food to come. He was a great fish.

Unfortunately mines not that smart so far. I was worried about pollution because my tank is only a 29 gallon and I only have three small fish, so I wasn't sure how this method held in smaller tanks.

Anyway, I put in the jar yesterday and he didn't go near it all day, he just stayed in the back where I couldn't see him. I put in fresh Cyclops when I turned the lights out, all the food was missing in the morning but that doesn't necessarily mean that he ate it. I'll keep you posted, and thanks again for your help.

 

[Meldrath]

I actually was talking with Marc this weekend, and that subject came up from someone else (DFWMAS tour bus) and he said it worked really well until one of his other fish figured out where the food was and bullied the mandarin out of jar.

 

[webersp]

I actually was talking with Marc this weekend, and that subject came up from someone else (DFWMAS tour bus) and he said it worked really well until one of his other fish figured out where the food was and bullied the mandarin out of jar.

I just dropped in a jar of food no more than 5 minutes ago. My cleaner shrimp has made his way into the jar and already finished all of the cyclops that I added to the jar, throwing most of it out into the water column, so I'm going to assume that the mandarin didn't get any last night either.

 

[BHD]

The Jar only works if you don't have any other fishes that can get into the Jar. That's why I moved my six line wrasse and all the hermit crabs and shrimp to other tank. The mandarin is beautiful but so hard to keep.. Have to sacrifice a lot for it.

 

[webersp]

The Jar only works if you don't have any other fishes that can get into the Jar. That's why I moved my six line wrasse and all the hermit crabs and shrimp to other tank. The mandarin is beautiful but so hard to keep.. Have to sacrifice a lot for it.

I'm seeing that side of them now. This is the second mandarin I've kept, and my first one gave me absolutely no problems at all, which I know is atypical. He would eat anything that I put in the tank, even pellets out of the water column. I left for an internship and I had to tear that tank down. I got this Mandarin from the same LFS, but I've obviously had no such luck this time.

 

[EllieSuz]

Give Nutramar Ova a try. I've never known a Mandarin that won't eat it and it's very nutritious.

 

[webersp]

Give Nutramar Ova a try. I've never known a Mandarin that won't eat it and it's very nutritious.

I actually have a flat of Nutramar I've been attempting to feed with. The problem that I'm running into is that it's small and he has a difficult time finding it unless I intentionally drop in enough that there's Nutramar sitting on the rocks.

I have an old 6 gallon eclipse fish tank I'm thinking about putting some established rock and sand in and moving him over there to try to get him to eat without destroying the balance in my DT.

 

[webersp]

The goby went in the jar twice today and ate Nutramar. The first time there wasn't much left over from the cleaner shrimp and I was about ready to give up, but he went in and ate a few pieces and left, so I added more, and he came back and ate that. What I did to encourage him to get in there and eat was angle the jar so that he could go underneath the glass and see the food. Once he saw the Nutramar, it was killing him that he couldn't get to it. It took him about a half hour to find it. The second time it took him about five minutes.

Picture is terrible, left my DSLR at my girlfriend's and had to use my Iphone camera.

 

[EllieSuz]

That's fantastic! Congratulations. It's amazing that they can learn this behavior. I feed mine Nutramar through a long feeding tube in the same corner every morning. As soon as I put the powerheads on Standby, he hurries over to his corner. He will consume "clumps" of the ova and I also spray some on the sand where he will pick at it. Timing the feeding to avoid much more aggressive feeding fish is always a problem. Just takes a lot of patience. My Mandarin gets plenty of pods and probably doesn't need special feeding, but I like to keep him in the habit.

 

[webersp]

That's fantastic! Congratulations. It's amazing that they can learn this behavior. I feed mine Nutramar through a long feeding tube in the same corner every morning. As soon as I put the powerheads on Standby, he hurries over to his corner. He will consume "clumps" of the ova and I also spray some on the sand where he will pick at it. Timing the feeding to avoid much more aggressive feeding fish is always a problem. Just takes a lot of patience. My Mandarin gets plenty of pods and probably doesn't need special feeding, but I like to keep him in the habit.

I wasn't planning on feeding him pods, which admittedly means that I probably should not have bought him. Today he's had some Mysis, Brine, and Roe from the jar, so he's getting a pretty good variety. I'll throw some pods in every now and again for him to hunt.