I picked up a mandarin and he was eating frozen brine at the store. I put him in the tank 3 days ago and I've tried to get him to eat 3 times a day. He just gets scared of the turkey baster and swims away. I've also tried putting a glass jar of food in a corner of the tank and all that does is attract everything but him and the food is gone in seconds. I have him in a breeder box now trying to get him to eat. Im trying to feed small mysis shrimp and cyclopeze. Any ideas??
Getting mandarin to eat frozen, nothing works
- Thread starter sredzins
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Ozzy
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He might just need to get used to your tank. It can always take time. The jar idea is a good one. But you have to make sure you are feeding the whole tank at the same time to keep others distracted. He may just be filling up on all the pods in your tank lol. Good Luck!
What size tank? Unless there is a healthy copepod population he will starve. Especially eating nothing but frozen brine shrimp, which has no nutritional value at all.
A healthier frozen food for him/her would be Nutramar Ova which they readily take too.
But in all honesty and having lost 3 myself
Unless you have a large tank with Copepods, your Mandarin is doomed. Take it back to the LFS!
A healthier frozen food for him/her would be Nutramar Ova which they readily take too.
But in all honesty and having lost 3 myself
Unless you have a large tank with Copepods, your Mandarin is doomed. Take it back to the LFS!After reading several articles on keeping mandarins in home aquaria and doing enough research, it is out dated to assume they put in the tank and forgotten about because there is a healthy pod population. I have a refugium full of pods and plenty of live rock in my 55. And I am not feeding it brine. Its a mix of cyclopeze and small mysis. it just started picking at the cyclopeze in the breeder box.
Ozzy
Active Member
I have had mine for well over a year and he is fat and happy, by just eating formula 1 pellets. Mysis and brine get fed to the tank 2x a week as well. So keeping a mandarin in a small tank is very do able. I have him in a 40g w/ no issues. I had him in a 20g for about 3 months with no issues as well.
Would love to see a pic!!
Are you saying that a Mandarin can be kept happy & healthy by eating nothing but prepared foods?
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Eienna
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I only had mine for about six months or so (stupid me, crashing the tank), but I had him happily eating and growing on frozens and NLS pellets for the second half of that or so. He was in perfect condition, from what I could tell.
I ve had my mandarin 8 years!! to get it to eat put the mandarin in a breeder box so he has nothing to look at but prepared foods it will start eating in a day or two. also I like to use oceannutrition instant baby brine shrimp the stuff is great!!
Get him out of your breeder box, and watch him. If he is fattening up, don't worry. In my opinion, people should not try to train these fish to eat frozen. Turn I loose and if it eats frozen, hooray, otherwise make sure it isn't getting skinny. A healthy tank, of the appropriate size, should not have any trouble maintaining a mandarin though. Just be sure to provide a place for pods to reproduce safely.
Some might peck some food out of the water column during feeding, but you will not be able to fully support a mandarin on frozen foods unless you feed it about ten times a day. They use a ton of energy flapping those fins all day, they are like humming birds...need to eat constantly all day. So, even of you get it to eat frozen make sure you have a decent pod supply as well.
I had one for four years before it got eaten by my nem, it actually would go after blood worms more then anything else. It would suck them down like spaghetti noodles...lol. The bloodworms were in a carnivore mixed food cube I used to get.
Some might peck some food out of the water column during feeding, but you will not be able to fully support a mandarin on frozen foods unless you feed it about ten times a day. They use a ton of energy flapping those fins all day, they are like humming birds...need to eat constantly all day. So, even of you get it to eat frozen make sure you have a decent pod supply as well.
I had one for four years before it got eaten by my nem, it actually would go after blood worms more then anything else. It would suck them down like spaghetti noodles...lol. The bloodworms were in a carnivore mixed food cube I used to get.
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He definitely isn't fat at all. He's actually pretty skinny. I took him out of the breeder box since I've only had it 3 days. Its continuously picking the rocks for pods, how long will it be before I can tell if he's getting enough pods and is putting on weight?
Mine was fairly fat in about three days to a week...starving in the breeder box probably set it back a good bit.
Whatever happened to your last Mandarin?
Unfortunately I kept it in the breeder box to long and it never accepted the frozen. So I bought a bunch of bottled pods, built several "pod condos" in my refugium and waited a few months and wanted to try again.
I just tried the turkey baster again with the cyclopeze and mysis and he is taking both! I turned off the pumps and blew some in the sand in a corner of the tank and hes been picking in the corner for about 10 minutes
