Need Mandarin Fish Advice Fast..

[nightOwl]

Ok I a question and need a some advice pretty fast. I have two madarin fish that I purchased on 10/2 a male and female. The female is greedy I have her eating brine, bloodworms, and mysis (sometimes). I am hoping to get her to eat pellets. The male however is a little stubborn and will only eat mysis but not readily. I have them in containers inside my display and he is getting skinny mean while the female is looking plumb. Inside each container is a piece of live rock. I think the live rock has critters on it as I see both of them pecking occassionaly. Should I give up on trying to make him eat the food I want and let him and let him roam the tank and fatten up or keep trying. I am not sure how much longer he can make it. His sides are starting to look a little sunken in but he is still happy and alert.

Thanks in advance

 

[SecretiveFish]

If you are putting them in your 180, the tank has been running awhile and you have a fair amount of live rock, let them go! Unless you have some other type of fish in your tank that is taking out the copepods, there should be plenty of food. Even if you have a competitor in the tank, I would still let the male go. If he is thin already, he needs access to copepods fast before he gets too weak to search for them.

 

[snorvich]

If you are putting them in your 180, the tank has been running awhile and you have a fair amount of live rock, let them go! Unless you have some other type of fish in your tank that is taking out the copepods, there should be plenty of food. Even if you have a competitor in the tank, I would still let the male go. If he is thin already, he needs access to copepods fast before he gets too weak to search for them.

I agree. In any case, I do not think you want to be spot feeding each mandarin for the remainder of their life. They are not going to be able to compete for food with other fishes and they have a metabolism which requires constant foraging.

 

[peasofme]

the problem here is letting diseases into the dt. u may want to bring pods to the qt.

 

[Khemul]

the problem here is letting diseases into the dt. u may want to bring pods to the qt.

It was stated that they are currently in a container in the display. Sounds like QT is not a factor.

 

[jr973]

I would definetly let em go and be happy in the tank as long as you feel there is sufficient food in the tank you should be ok and you can always go to your lfs and buy reef nutrition live tiger pods and put into your fuge area to replenish pods if need be also brine if you like good luck with the pair

 

[sanchoy]

No such thing is being greedy.. the mandarin will eat what they like. Its like if someone caged you up and told you to eat only poo... You don't like poo.. and will not eat it to sustain yourself.

Truth is, your male mandarin will likely die if nothing changes. the good thing for you, is you claim he eats mysis.. so continue feeding him that. There natural food is copepods.. They will unlikely accept pellets.

 

[nightOwl]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. They were held in QT for 5 days before they went to the DT. I treated them with Instant Ocean Lifeguard which is a 5 day treatment. It didn't kill them so seems to work.

The tanks has been running for a while and has a substantial amount of pods. Actually there are tons of pods in my setup. The sump is full of pods and I also have a frag tank that is connected to my setup. I have released both of them into the display tank and they both seem to be doing well. The other fish are use to them since they have been in the containers for a few weeks now.

Now that they are in the tank I plan to replenish the pod population every month or so.

Below is the tank they reside in: