romsoccer12
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what is the minimum liverock amount to keep a red mandarin alive until he dies of natural causes?
red mandarin
- Thread starter romsoccer12
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romsoccer12
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you think 50lbs, small fuge with chaeto, and a mandarin that eats frozen food would make it happy? why does the tank size matter as long as it has the minimum liverock amount? cant a 30gallon have 60lbs of liverock in it?
giambi4343
New member
i have only heard of one case where a mandarin ate frozen food. if you have one you are a lucky mofo 
Sitarangi
New member
What kind of tank is it? How much LR? Filtration? How long has your tank been running? Do you have any wrasses or fish that would compete with the mandarin for food?
I kept a mandarin in a 29g long for about 6 months. I also ran a 10g fuge and had 50/60 pounds of LR in the system. Hes in a 46g tall now with a sump and fat as a pig. Hes going in a 150 in a couple months.
If you want a dragonet of any kind, a hefty sized sump and ample pod population is a must. At night check your tank for pods. You have to watch your mandarin's behavior everyday. If he's not picking at something every 10-30 seconds i'd be worried. Take pictures of him and monitor his weight. If he starts getting a little skinny i'd give him to someone who has a bigger tank (don't return him to a LFS, odds are they'll just kill it)
I'm not saying its impossible, and they make great nano fish IF you are prepared and observant.
davocean
Active member
Only reason I listed tank size is you need something big enough to hold enough LR.
A good size sump/fuge could overcome that.
IMO a mandy eating prepd food only helps a little.
At about 1-3 pods per minute, it's pretty hard to accomidate them w/ prep'd food.
There are ways around it, just depends on how much you want to dedicate to them.
romsoccer12
New member
29gal biocube and its been up for 4-5 months. refiugum with chaeto/rubble in the back 2nd chamber. 1 blenny 1 chromis whos about to be kicked out and 2 true percs. im at least gonna wait 8 months and try to add as much more possible Liverock and maybe some rubble in a back corner before i try to add him
romsoccer12
New member
what do you think the most nutritional food for them is?
D3monic_Urges
New member
If you enrich thier food with a product like selcon then whatever you are feeding them will be a good choice. Mysis are a good meaty food. Brine are virtually unnutritional. Bloodworms seem to be a favored treat in my tank. Everything I feed is enriched. Pellets are another story. No one in my tank will eat them. If you decide to get a Mandarin I suggest having the store feed it live brine first. If it doesnt eat. Dont get it. 95% of the Mandarins that I have seen feed will eat. There are several routes one can use for training. Matt p wrote up a good training program using a breeder net. Personally I tried it and it didnt work well for me but it may for others. My latest addition took to bloodworms the same day. heres a link http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1217
romsoccer12
New member
ima try that breeder net. do you have to culture live mysis or can you buy it?
D3monic_Urges
New member
I just use frozen hikari mysis...I think you can buy it live but you wont like the price tag. Just use live brine for the origional conditioning. Before anything I would try frozen bloodworms. if he will eat those then theres no point in conditioning it. The biggest thing is turning the power heads off when feeding. They are very slow deliberate feeders and usually will not chase food around. Thats 90% of the reason they dont eat prepared foods in most peoples tanks. They just watch it blow by. If you can get it to eat out of a dish it minimizes mess. I usually turn the pumps off while the food is defrosting in a shot glass with some tank water. The fish learn real quick that when the pumps go off its time to eat. They start circling the shell I use as a feeding dish waiting for thier meal. I used to use a feeding tube but now i use a 3/4 piece of pvc that I just stick one end into the feeding dish and dump the contents down into the dish. Its faster than my previous method. All food gets soaked in selcon for about 15min then dumped into a brine net and rinsed in ro then dumped back into the shot glass with alittle RO then down the pvc into the dish. If there is anything left (rarely is) I suck it up with the feeding tube and give it to my acans or suns.
David - Miami
Aquanot!
D3monic_Urges
Do you have any photos documenting this? That sounds interesting, but I am not clear how all of this works.
Do you have any photos documenting this? That sounds interesting, but I am not clear how all of this works.
davocean
Active member
Mine have eaten mysis.
I'm sure they also got eggs from spawning clowns.
I've heard peeps feeding them other eggs, like oyster.
The thing to keep in mind though is their metabolism, so constant feedings are needed.
Think like a hummingbird, eating all day, many times their weight.
I'm sure they also got eggs from spawning clowns.
I've heard peeps feeding them other eggs, like oyster.
The thing to keep in mind though is their metabolism, so constant feedings are needed.
Think like a hummingbird, eating all day, many times their weight.
D3monic_Urges
New member
They definatly need to be able to pick all day in between meals. I keep a 5gal fuge plumbed into my display. Heres a older pic.
you can see the fuge on the shelf above the DT.
David im not quite sure what you mean. I dont have step by step photage. Heres a older video from when I would target feed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhCr8TNl0HA
You can see how messy that can get. thats why I resorted to using a feeding dish. Ill see if I can fix my camcorder. I had it in the bottom of a cooler at the frag swap this weekend and water got into it >.< I got another one but its a PINTA it only takes mini disks. If I can get one going I will film feeding with the dish.
you can see the fuge on the shelf above the DT.
David im not quite sure what you mean. I dont have step by step photage. Heres a older video from when I would target feed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhCr8TNl0HA
You can see how messy that can get. thats why I resorted to using a feeding dish. Ill see if I can fix my camcorder. I had it in the bottom of a cooler at the frag swap this weekend and water got into it >.< I got another one but its a PINTA it only takes mini disks. If I can get one going I will film feeding with the dish.
darkside212
New member
the trick to training a mandarin is to shut off your pumps right before you feed it. Use something that will allow you to place the food right in front of the fish. I use a long plastic airline tube connected to a syringe. Takes a few days, and the fish will eat like clockwork.... bloodworms worked the best for me, but then I slowly presented other foods and now it will even eat flake
darkside212
New member
btw this has worked with; scooters, blues, and spotted (for me)
darkside212
New member
IMHO tank size is irrelevant...my 65 was loaded with pods for about a week when I put the spotted in.
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