ORA Mandarin Dragonets!!!!!

Haha. I figured you just misspelled "than" lol.


rgonzalez said:
You mean better in grammar? My point?

Who cares =D
Click to expand...


Anyways, I don't think I'll be getting one of these guys soon. Both my LFS that I frequent are asking $75. Seems pretty steep considering the point of CB is to somewhat relieve the collections pressure on wild fish. At least to me anyways.

I know if I ever get any of my fish to produce viable offspring I'll be selling them for a lot less than WC.
-Luis
 
Not to mention, not all LFS are on the up and up, whose to say they aren't simply claiming ORA and charging a higher premium? Something to think about...
 
Has anyone had any luck getting their tiny targets to eat anything? I've tried the spectrum pellets that ORA uses but to no avail. I've tried spirulina brine, mysis, crushed flake and the pellets and the mandarin doesn't even bat an eyelash so to speak. I've currently got him in a pond basket in my sump (my lfs guy suggested I make sure he is eating prepared food before releasing him into my DT) and there are all sorts of pods crawling around in the basket but he hasn't touched them either (at least under my watch). I've had him since sunday (7/11) and I don't think he's had anything to eat yet...

Any advice?
 
kaiboshi said:
Has anyone had any luck getting their tiny targets to eat anything? I've tried the spectrum pellets that ORA uses but to no avail. I've tried spirulina brine, mysis, crushed flake and the pellets and the mandarin doesn't even bat an eyelash so to speak. I've currently got him in a pond basket in my sump (my lfs guy suggested I make sure he is eating prepared food before releasing him into my DT) and there are all sorts of pods crawling around in the basket but he hasn't touched them either (at least under my watch). I've had him since sunday (7/11) and I don't think he's had anything to eat yet...

Any advice?
Click to expand...

How long have you been watching? Maybe he's eating pods while you're not around? I haven't seen my guy eat anything yet. He stays in his part of the tank and hangs around. It hasn't been 2 days yet, so I'm not too worried.

Or maybe we all just got hosed :)
 
Here's mine. He's been in there for a week now...

cff4378326f945eaad698a1ff0d32da7
 
I saw him picking at things the first day or two, but haven't actually witnessed anything lately, although i keep trying to feed him pellets. The bristle worms sure appreciate it tho :)
 
Yea, mine isn't eating any prepared foods yet. I've read on other boards they are having the same problem. I think if this keeps happening to a bunch of people I am going to organize a mass protest against ORA.

Don't promise something you can't deliver.
 
I smell a class action lawsuit!

Just joking. I hope they really do take prepared foods readily. Maybe ORA rushed things a bit?
 
If they did rush things, not only are they wasting peoples money in this terrible economy, but they're also killing innocent animals for their own profit.
 
Acclimated mine yesterday mid afternoon. They had 2 at my LFS and they wouldn't eat pellets there, but they had just came in 4 hours prior. Selling them for $50.

Hasn't eaten a pellet, live brine, dead brine, cyclo or mysis. I use a straw to put pellets on the sand and count how many I put. Still there. He just swims around like a normal mandarin and sits on the sand. Haven't even seen him pick at rocks. Not sure what I'm going to do. There's so many different types of food to try in his tank it looks like a snow globe!
 
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Ben, you're not alone. I'm going on 48 hours since my little guy has been in the tank. He swims by the food. The pellets drop near him and he has no interest. I'm going to keep trying, but it is frustrating to see that lots of people are having this same problem.
 
darnocobra said:
For those of you that have them, did you QT them or add them straight to display?
Click to expand...

Mine is still in QT sorta. Like I said he's in a container in my refugium so it's the same water from my system but he is seperate to ensure that he actually DOES eat prepared food. I'm not too worried about it carrying disease I just want to establish some kind of feeding response or pattern to aid his survival. I'm 100% confident my tank can support a wild mandarin so a tank bred mandarin SHOULD be fine but who knows. I'm going to try to contact ORA tommorrow and see what they recommend. My current plan is to simply add the mandarin to my DT if he refuses to eat prepared food and treat him just like a wild mandarin. It's a major disappointment but hopefully I won't lose the little guy.

Another thing I've noticed is that he isn't very active. He'll sit in the same spot for long stretches of time instead of hunting around like a wild mandarin would. Has anyone else noticed this? I know some fish are finnicky with transitions so maybe this particular batch is acting goofy (not eating or being very active) because they haven't settled in to all the different routines they are now being forced to adjust to?

Any thoughts?
 
Kaiboshi,

My little guy sits in the same spot for a long time as well. He has relegated himself to the back left corner of the tank. He's not scared or breathing hard. Let us know what ORA says tomorrow when you call. If they give you the same crap about feeding him different oyster eggs or blood worms, tell them that it's not working.
 
Here is a post by one of the first recipients of a green mandarin from Matthew Wittenrich (the breeder that inspired all this) and his response about weaning on prepared foods:

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=30422#p30422

Hopefully they have just had their weaning broken by the availability of live foods or stress of shipping and will remember prepared foods when they get hungry enough. Of course that was with Synchiropus splendidus not Synchiropus picturatus, but I hope that helps you guys.
 
Just got off the phone with ORA. Very nice people actually.

They told me that they are feeding them Ova and supposedly posted a video of them eating like pigs today, I have yet to track that down.

I was instructed to release my mandarin into my DT so he could get used to the new environment and whatnot. He will supposedly eat pods and behave naturally over feeding on prepared foods however if for some reason the pod population is depleted he will revert to frozen foods.

A tip the guy gave me with blood worms is to chop them up a bit, dunno if that'll help or not but I guess I can try it.

Apparently ORA had the exact same issues we are having when they took the baby mandarins to a show recently. They didn't eat at the show but after a few days of being back in their home at ORA they were eating normally again. It's just a matter of time for them to adjust.

So I'm going to release mine into my DT and see how it goes, fingers crossed.
 
If they told me the part about the DT and eating pods I would have told them to refund me the difference in price between a WC and their designer CB!
 
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