skinny manderin fish

[spamreefnew]

well i got a manderin fish last night,after i got him home i noticed that he is real skinny my system is over 6 yrs old and i have loads of pods but is there anything else i can do to ensure that he eats and survives?

 

[jmski333]

what size is your tank? i got my mandarin to eat for the first time when i soaked Blood Worms in Selcon. So now everytime i feed blood worms he goes nuts and loves eating them. i'd give it a shot.

 

[mike_cmu04]

If nothing else is wrong with him he should eat the pods and fatten up but if there is other problems there may not be much you can do.

 

[scubasteve06]

what size is your tank? i got my mandarin to eat for the first time when i soaked Blood Worms in Selcon. So now everytime i feed blood worms he goes nuts and loves eating them. i'd give it a shot.

I just got one that is pretty darn skinny also. I have tons of pods everywhere, glass, rocks, sand, fuge with a lot of macro algae, 4" sand bed in fuge 4" sand bed in DT and LR rubble in fuge. He is getting a little better, but I was thinking of using some brine shrimp to fatten him up but have heard they have no nutritional value whatsoever unless you gut load them. I have some Hikari blood worms in the freezer from when I had a FW cichlid tank. You think if I soaked these in Kent Garlic Extreme and used a turkey baster to get them down to him he might eat them? Was there any specific way you fed him the blood worms? I've heard they like things that wiggle and that a lot of people use a shot glass layed on its side as it allows a little flow to enter and tumble the food around making it look live. You place it near or on their favorite space and they make their way into the shot glass or at the entrance and pick off the pieces as they slowly tumble/float out. What do you think?

 

[NYCBOB]

if ur system has lots of pods, and the fish is strong enough to eat, then over time, the mandarin will fatten up. most wild mandarin wat nothing but pods, so dont even bother feeding it brine and worms.

 

[spamreefnew]

ok thanks all,,i do have lots of pods,,just hope he has the energy to catch em

 

[olsenshouse]

I purchased a skinny mandarin about 3 months ago. I made sure I had tons of pods in my tank and everything went just fine. He's been with me ever since eating away. He should be fine as long as you have a good amount for him to eat.

 

[ludnix]

I just got one that is pretty darn skinny also. I have tons of pods everywhere, glass, rocks, sand, fuge with a lot of macro algae, 4" sand bed in fuge 4" sand bed in DT and LR rubble in fuge. He is getting a little better, but I was thinking of using some brine shrimp to fatten him up but have heard they have no nutritional value whatsoever unless you gut load them. I have some Hikari blood worms in the freezer from when I had a FW cichlid tank. You think if I soaked these in Kent Garlic Extreme and used a turkey baster to get them down to him he might eat them? Was there any specific way you fed him the blood worms? I've heard they like things that wiggle and that a lot of people use a shot glass layed on its side as it allows a little flow to enter and tumble the food around making it look live. You place it near or on their favorite space and they make their way into the shot glass or at the entrance and pick off the pieces as they slowly tumble/float out. What do you think?

I think frozen brine shrimp is must be fairly nutritional. I always see a huge weight gain when they start eating it.

 

[spamreefnew]

il have to get some frozen tiny shrimp just to give it a shot ,,,thanks to all!

 

[FlyinggFish]

If you have the time you can "train" them to eat mysis shrimp (which are more nutritional then brine). My mandarin eats everything now and I think it has a lot to do with dedicating the time to feed him individually apart from all the other fish. He now accepts food from my hand and eats seaweed + plus a mix of other frozen food.

 

[davocean]

You might want to try something like "melevs diner" trick, and use oyster eggs, or mysis.
Many will go for eggs, and they are high in nutritional value, same as mysis.
Brine shrimp have very little nutritional value, so add selcon/vitamins if you use that, or better live brine.
Of course pods will be their main diet.