How is my mandarin doing?

[chousecat]

Hello,

Just reached 3 months with my mandarin, I feed it frozen bloodworms every day. I am not sure if there are pods in my aquarium to be honest, never saw it in the night but I always see this guy poking around the rocks. My tank is around 2 years old before I added him.

Does my mandarin look "healthy"?

 

[john92708]

looks skinny. try live baby brine shrimp yet? maybe start culturing pods and/or add a refugium to your tank and add some pods.

 

[stephanjupillat]

Mandarins eat pods all day. I’d recommend getting a few bottles of Tisbe and/or apex to seed your tank. You will need to start dosing phyto daily tho. In 60 gallon tank I dose daily 10ml of reef nutrition dead phyto to keep pod population up. I have a couple bio blocks in sump that I know has plenty of pods living in it. This way there’s always a spot the pods will reproduce without getting eaten immediately, and will eventually make their way to the DT via return pump. I was always told keeping a pod population was required for mandarins. If you see them on your glass then you have plenty.

 

[Goby Bryant]

Other than those, he looks pretty good!

 

[Coralsdaily]

A healthy mandarin looks like a torpedo smooth all around and fat. I see the stomach is sunken showing it has not been eating well. Please do a what others suggest to buy some live pods to start the culture in your tank. You may also try frozen pods, cyclopods, and plankton to see if you can entice its appetite.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Take a look at Reef Nutrition’s offerings… they have Tigger Feast which is a ton of preserved tigger pods in a bottle. Also, check out Algae Barn… they have a specific mandarin pack. That might help you out a bit!

 

[chousecat]

Thanks everyone. I thought I was doing good and then I encountered PaulB's Mandarin feeder thread and his mandarins were looking more rounder than mine which prompted this thread. I'm definitely going to build it this weekend