Captive Bred Mandarin

Shep · Jun 8, 2015

I would really like to get a pair for a tank but I know how easily they can starve to death and how rare it is for them to take frozen food but have heard that captive brd ones have a much better success. Does anyone know where I can find captive bred ones? I know ORA used to have them but I heard that they stopped due to low demand.

Tabasco1 · Jun 8, 2015

I've heard mixed results with the captive ones and that it was no guarantee. They may have stopped because of that.

I have trained one onto frozen and there are a couple methods that are detailed for doing so and it was successful. Patience is key with that. From what I have read training does have pretty good results. I did have to use a diner after getting him on frozen through. He just couldn't compete for food. So I don't think it would ever be as easy as just feeding at feeding time or top feeding. You would need to make sure they have food source in the diner for grazing most of the day and to clean it. It's a decent amount of extra to the routine.

What worked for me:
In a small tank (10 gallons) I offered live, then live mixed with nutra ova in the diner (really I used a small glass jelly jar as there were no other fish to worry about keeping out and just wanted him to get used to it. Then just ova. Then ova mixed with small pellet. Took about 2 weeks.

Sadly after a couple months he jumped.

So make sure you also have a screen.
Good luck.

Tabasco1 · Jun 8, 2015

oh, the live I was feeding was BBS.

Shep · Jun 8, 2015

Thanks for the reply. If I do the tank that I am thinking of, they will be the only fish in the there. I will read up on training them, is it better to get young(smaller ones) than older(larger ones)? (Assuming size can be correlated to age)