Mandarin Primer

great video lildraken! LOL - I saw that on you tube when I wanted to get a manny and it was good to see yours tearing into food!

So mine I have had about 3 months and it is a spotted mandarin... He is a great hunter and has lowered my pod population quickly, but I started early on "basting" him with mysis. A few weeks ago, he took his first bite. I almost missed it but my wife saw it clearly. So I got some frozen brine and basted him a few times and he was eating. Now, I turn off my pumps like I have always done, feed the other fish (which include a six line, yellow tail damsel, 2 firefish, and a maroon clown) and shoot a few brine around him and he comes running! I was so excited when he started eating... I know now that alot of people do it, but it could be my biggest aquatic accomplishment

I also love to see him hunt so my LFS stocks live tigger pods and I add 2000+ every month or so...

-1684_NBs_VIV.jpg
 
i've had my green spotted for about a year now in my 125 but i waited about 2 years for my tank to establish. i believe he eats something out of a mixture of foods i put in the tank but grazes as well. i dislike the importing of mandarins, they are not expensive fish and im sure the death rate is extremly high. they are attractive fish and affordable so many lfs sell em no questions asked and people later on wonder why the fish dies? if you are going to buy a mandarin plz know about the proper care,etc before hand and dont just flush your money down the toilet.
 
Yeah mine do their own thing for most of the day, then bed down together at night.

Sometimes they swim around together.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14004344#post14004344 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jkeel16


I also love to see him hunt so my LFS stocks live tigger pods and I add 2000+ every month or so...
Click to expand...

I would too, but tigger pods are like 20 $ a container and I would rather sped that money on a new frag or something else.
 
lol.... $29 here... so yep! now I go catch marine grass shrimp and he eats those. They hang out of his mouth and he swims like JAWS . He likes the small ones best. Also, now I must have millions of pods on my tank... thick on the glass and can be seen with and w/o a mag glass.
 
Yeah i have tons in my fuge, I look in there and i always see like 10-20pods 24/7. I don't have a mandarin yet but i am sure one would go to town i my tank :)
 
Great thread, kinda' tough on dial-up! I've got a psych about 2 years old, and put a little spotted in 3 months ago. 180 gal tank with a 55 gal sump/fuge with a big ball of chaeto. I shake the chaeto every few days, and have pods galore. Last week, I was bragging about how good the two of them got along, and there goes the big psych flying aroung the tank with the little spotted sideways in his mouth! My freinds all got a good laugh watching me grab a piece of rigid tubing and chasing them aroung the tank untill I got them apart. So far, so good no more incidents. John
 
Iv had my mandarin for a little over a month. So far he looks really healthy. My tank is only 3 and a half months old and i have a leopard wrasse that eats pods as well but i have a 30gal fuge with pods all over. When i got him at LFS he wasnt eating the pellets they were feeding but was the most active out of the 10 or so mandarins they had. I havnt been able to get him eating prepared foods yet but he's eating pods non stop. Ill try live brine in the next couple days. Would have been a good idea to train him before introducing to main i guess. He really ignores everything i throw in the tank because the pods have his attention 24/7. I dont know if anyone has tried this as a method to train the mandy to eat prepared foods but im thinking im going to try it. The idea was to put a tiny water bottle with some holes full of pods and brine in the tank everyday. Im hoping the bottle will eventually catch his attention so he knows to come to it for food. Then i can put mysis or pellets mixed in and open the top to see if hell go in. Do you think that would work? Iv tried leaving food in a long shot glass so he can go inside and eat like on melev's site but he ignores the shotglass and the scavengers of the tank are all over it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14004344#post14004344 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jkeel16
great video lildraken! LOL - I saw that on you tube when I wanted to get a manny and it was good to see yours tearing into food!

So mine I have had about 3 months and it is a spotted mandarin... He is a great hunter and has lowered my pod population quickly, but I started early on "basting" him with mysis. A few weeks ago, he took his first bite. I almost missed it but my wife saw it clearly. So I got some frozen brine and basted him a few times and he was eating. Now, I turn off my pumps like I have always done, feed the other fish (which include a six line, yellow tail damsel, 2 firefish, and a maroon clown) and shoot a few brine around him and he comes running! I was so excited when he started eating... I know now that alot of people do it, but it could be my biggest aquatic accomplishment

I also love to see him hunt so my LFS stocks live tigger pods and I add 2000+ every month or so...

-1684_NBs_VIV.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks Jkeel for the comment! I'm very happy to hear your mandarin is eating!


I'm not sure if I got lucky with this mandarin and my method. maybe I'll try again with another one and document it with video. I do feel bad that so many mandarins are sold at pet stores knowing that most will die. The selling at pet stores will not change; however, we as hobbyists can make a difference by trying different methods and showing others how to save their mandarins.

It is my theory that the trick is that the mandarins do not "know" it's food until he tastes it a couple of times and becomes accustomed to the flavor. using a pipette or turkey baster to gently get some of the chosen food into the fish's mouth is no different than when people nurse orphaned baby wild animals back to health with a medicine dropper. They almost always spit it back out the first couple of times.
Personally I think that's why it's important to train the fish in a small quarantine aquarium first before putting him in the display. Since mine eats shrimp I haven't had to spend a dime on those tiny pods that cost so much! Use that money to buy your mandarin a girlfriend! tee hee
 
man those pictures are Beautiful!!!!!.........i have a mandarin and she is beautiful....trying to get amale for her.....they are cool when they ar ein a pail like yours are.........and again Great Pictures.....as well as beautiful fish!!!!
 
I'm happy to say mine just started eating frozen food about two days ago. He has come to learn when the smell of food is in the tank, he swims to the top left corner and sits on a rock while I spot feed him from a childs medicine dropper. I squeeze a little out and he eats right from it. Iliminates the competition from my Six Line and a Blue Chromis that swoop in on everything. He's a nice liitle plump guy now.

The only time I see pods in my tank is when the lights go out. The Six Line has decimated my colony.
 
yes those 6 lines eat and eat and eat. They keep worms down as well. And pretty much anything else thats fits in their mouth. I feed live marine shrimp form the bay here and the 6 line will grab them and swim away with the shrimps legs wiggling( on each side of his mouth)... reminds me of JAWS... lol.
Even my manny eats the smaller live shrimp... thats funny too. But good job dd getting your manny to eat!
 
Yeah. I'm very happy about this. I knew the difficulty of keeping them going in besides being a total newbie as we're/I'm called. Selfish reasons of course in getting a Mandarin. I was really getting on myself for doing so until he started eating. Pure luck on having him eat. Zero skill on my part.

That Six Line will eat the food right out of other fishes mouthes if they don't swallow fast enough. I swear my bristle worm population has tripled since I got my Six Line and Arrow crab. I just recently pulled(sucked up using a turkey baster) a 3" guy and I've seen his twin.

How's the song go? Galveston oh Galveston.....That's all I know. Just got an email advertising 5 acres on lake Hubbard I believe for $39,900. Not waterfront of course.
 
mandarin food

mandarin food

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14304589#post14304589 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ddinox64
I'm happy to say mine just started eating frozen food about two days ago. He has come to learn when the smell of food is in the tank, he swims to the top left corner and sits on a rock while I spot feed him from a childs medicine dropper. I squeeze a little out and he eats right from it. Iliminates the competition from my Six Line and a Blue Chromis that swoop in on everything. He's a nice liitle plump guy now.

The only time I see pods in my tank is when the lights go out. The Six Line has decimated my colony.
Click to expand...

ddinox64, did he start eating without the aid of the medicine dropper? and what kind of frozen food did he start on?
 
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