I've gotten many mixed answers from Lfs workers and decided to look to you all! If you do have a mature tank with some copepods but the mandarin DOES for certain accept frozen, do you have to necessarily worry about the pods? Or can you just make sure they get frozen multiple times daily????
Probably another stupid mandarin question
- Thread starter Ryand63
- Start date
jk1138
New member
I would err on the side of caution and buy pods for it every week or two until I know I have a good population growing in my sump.
Hyperion1337
Active member
i just trained my mandarin to eat frozen brine (enriched) and mysis
i'll put him back into the DT and start a mandarin diner.
I'll tell you how it goes.
i'll put him back into the DT and start a mandarin diner.
I'll tell you how it goes.
Hyperion1337
Active member
okay will do, i just recently weaned him so i'll be keeping him in the training box until he eats it with gusto which would prob. be another week. Search up mandarin diner on google and u'll get dozens of articles about it and sites explaining, check out melev's reef for the mandarin diner, very good info in it.
rssjsb
New member
You can't really buy enough pods to keep them fed - they're eating machines. How big is the tank? Do you have a refugium? What other fish do plan to keep?
Go to a store that has a mandarin in an actual display tank or find someone that has a dragonette.
Watch their behavior. If you notice, all they do is hunt to food all day long. When I noticed this, it changed my whole outlook on spot feeding or getting them to eat prepared foods.
29 gallon tank w/out a refugium. Stock list by a year from now would just be: 1 Clown (not sure which type to go with yet), 1 dwarf flame angel and 1 royal gramma w/ a cuc of course.
29 gallon tank = negative.
Hyperion1337
Active member
yeah 29 is a tad bit too small
If you have your heart set out on owning a mandarin one day, best advice I can give is build a 75 with sump. Have a nice size fuge on the sump. From day 1 after it has cycled, set up the fuge with macroalgae, preferably chaeto, dose the fuge with pods once every 2 weeks for a month. Let it set for 8 months to a year, and try to avoid putting any fish in the system that will cause competition for food and that should be good to go.
cichlidconvert
Member
I had my mandarin in a 20g anemone tank. I know that's all bad I had to pull it out of my main tank due to being stressed by tank mates and it didn't go well at first. It was dropping weight and near death. So I asked a lady at the LFS what could I do and she suggested frozen ova. And that her mandarin loved it. So I tried it, and my mandarin inhales the stuff. It will pick up mouth fulls of it. And then I took a 1liter hob breeder made by marina Used a spare pump to run water in it stuffed it with chaeto and live rock poured in some pods and presto chango he gained back his weight. In a 20! Now he is in a 46 with all the same anemones and is doing fine. So I guess try ova (prawn roe) one manufacturer has a mandarin on the front of it lol. I guess its a hint.
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