Mandarin in new FOWLR

TheSimpleGuy

New member
What should I try to get this guy to eat? If you want more detail the story is below.

I've got a newly set up 75gal. w/ 120 lbs. LR (run for about 5mos. with a few damsels then moved gave away the damsels set it up next day and now running for 1month with no fish) Last night I purchased a T5 light and RO off craigslist and while I was there the guy who was tearing down his system gave me a Green Mandarin, shrimp and a long spine urchin so I said great and took them home. I read about them when I got home and now I'm concerned the Mandarin will not survive in a newly established system. (such a classic story I've read many times and thought I'd never do something so unresponsable but it was give to me and I was told he was easy to care for.)

Does anybody have any suggestions on what I can try to get this guy to eat while my pod population develops better. If I have to I will take out the LR to catch him if necessary and give him to an aquarium store however I would like to see what I can do before tearing down my system again. (I'm setting up QT this week I did not intend to start purchasing fish for a couple more weeks) If I do give to aquarium store he could very possibly end up in the same position when they sell it to some unexperienced person. When I went to my LFS this morning they did not seam to think I'd have a problem and sold me frozen baby brine and frozen ocean plankton??? I just moved to a new area and do not know of any good stores. If anybody is in the Rockville (D.C.) area please let me know of any good LFS.
 
You can go to copepods.com and order pods from them. Then put together a little cheap system similar to what would be used for growing out brine shrimp. You'll feed the pods with phytoplankton and keep them alive in favorable conditions and away from your mandarin. This way you can take some of them every few days and add to your system while letting them reproduce without preditors. You may need quite a few at first and may need to buy them a few times while you wait for your cultures to take off. But once they do they grow exponentially. That's my plan anyway.

There is a woman that is behind all this and she also sells on a different website a type of pods that is 3 different species. She has a PHD in biology or marine biology, I forget. She's been at this for a long time. I don't have her email address on this computer. But a little googling and following the links on the livecopepod site will lead you to her and she answers emails right away. She's very nice and will walk you through it. I'm just waiting to get through my trip I'm about to take and when I get back I'm starting this project and hopefully will get to the point of having enough to sell locally.

Suzi
 
I would always recommend waiting on a mandarin due to your exact concerns, but since you already have one, here is what I would suggest.

You may have some luck getting him to accept frozen brine, I know a lot of people do. If you can get him to do this... you'll be in the clear.

Also, melev's mandarin eats pellet food... He drops a few pellets into a glass coke bottle and submerges it... This keeps the larger fish from entering the bottle and eating the pellets before the mandarin can get to them.

You have to realize, a mandarin spends all day scavanging for and eating copods... so unless your population is well established, he will deplete it rapidly.
 
I'll try the frozen mysis and baby brine and start capepod aquaculture.
I sent the guy an email that gave it to me and he said it eats frozen baby brine sometimes but he had a lot of cappods it ate mostly. If he does not like the frozen baby brine in my tank how long should I let him go before I pull him out?
 
Mine eats formula 1 and formula 2 pellets. If you have some of those, turn off your powerheads and let some float to the bottom to see if he eats them.
 
Thanks so much guys. I think he is going to be fine he is eating the frozen brine and appears to be nipping at the LR a lot so maybe my pod population is not as bad as I thought. I found a new LFS where I can get DT's phyotoplanton for $8 and they will give me a tuff of some type of marine plant growing in their fuge that has tons of cape pods so I can start growing my own phyotoplancton and set up a tank to grow capepods untill I get my fuge set up. I cant believe it and $8 project. I think this is the cheapest project I've started yet :)
 
Even though he's picking at the rock, I wouldn't consider yourself out of the clear yet... keep an eye on him.. like I said they spend all day scavenging for those little guys, and can exhaust the population rather quickly. Although if he took some brine, you should have no worries.

Good luck with the lil guy, they're awesome fish :D
 
i would give mysis instead of brine though. mysis is better for the fish. Brine shrimp are a good treat though
 
Mine is still too skinny, I did the same thing, mistakenly bought it without doing my research first, and now am hoping to keep him alive. He does eat pellets like Melev's and I use a small caper jar like described in the Mandarin Diner (google it). I feed him Forumula One Pellets for Small Fish (.05mm i believe)

That being said I am working on getting some chaeto and copepods going in the sump/fuge to provide a real solid source of food for him.

Good Luck!
 
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