Mandarin starving itself to death?

ChrisOFL · Dec 9, 2017

Last Saturday I purchased a Green Mandarin and ever since he has been in my tank, he has done very little hunting. I have pods all over the glass but he completely ignores them. I've tried feeding LRS frozen, arcti-pods, I dumped at least 7000+ pods into the tank and left the pumps off for over an hour so they could settle into the rocks, I've tried herding him to where the pods are most dense, and I currently have decapped baby brine shrimp eggs in some @Paul B style feeders. He has no signs of disease and none of my fish are picking on him either but his stomach has been completely shrunken in since Monday. Has anyone else experienced a mandarin not eating for an extended time after being introduced into a new environment? I know it is not normal for a mandarin to behave this way for so long but I feel like I'm literally waiting for him to starve himself to death

OrionN · Dec 9, 2017

Did you observed him hunting at the LFS?
As is, I just leave him be. The more you trying to get him to eat, the more you bother him. The only thing you can do, which is providing him with pods and keep him in good comfortable position, I think you are doing.
How big is your tank, and what fish do you have in it?

ChrisOFL · Dec 9, 2017

OrionN said:
Did you observed him hunting at the LFS?
As is, I just leave him be. The more you trying to get him to eat, the more you bother him. The only thing you can do, which is providing him with pods and keep him in good comfortable position, I think you are doing.
How big is your tank, and what fish do you have in it?

He was doing his thing at the LFS and was a good girth as well so seemed like he was doing well. I only tried herding him once but otherwise I've just been blowing some food in his general direction hoping he may eat something. I have a 75gallon with just a Tomini Tang and a pair of breeding clowns that never leave their egg patch except when I feed LRS.

Maritimer · Dec 9, 2017

If you've got 'pods on your glass, you've got them on your rocks as well - any possibility he's picking up some of those?

Was this guy in a copper-treated system at the LFS?

~Bruce

OrionN · Dec 9, 2017

Cronicreefer said:
...I have a 75gallon with just a Tomini Tang and a pair of breeding clowns that never leave their egg patch except when I feed LRS.

Good luck with your Mandarin. I am sure he will do well after a few days. Can you post a current picture of him?
Regarding your clowns, the eat the egg if the egg died during development. IMO, clowns that laid eggs that developed and hatch is an indication of the fish good health. I would concentrate on get better food for your clowns. Better food for clowns does not mean frozen food. A wide variety of dry food is what clown fish need. Too much frozen food result in clown fish with poor health.
What is LRS?

Maritimer · Dec 9, 2017

OrionN said:
What is LRS?

Larry's Reef Services - a sponsor here on Reef2Reef, and produces a variety of top-drawer frozen blends. Larry gets seafood from fishermen, and things like live blackworms and polychaete worms for his foods, then chops them into bite-sized bits and adds probiotics before freezing in flat-packs and shipping to aquarium shops.

~Bruce

OrionN · Dec 9, 2017

As a Clown fish breeder, I recommended dry food for clowns.

Sycoticrealm · Dec 9, 2017

You want to use the same pods he was hunting at the LFS and if he/she lost weight and isn't hunting it may be a bad sign.
I have had a lot of success with mandarins that are healthy using mysid shrimp. I have two other common copepod and amphipod

DSC reef · Dec 9, 2017

OrionN said:
As a Clown fish breeder, I recommended dry food for clowns.

You should check out his fertility frenzy. @Cronicreefer is just leave him be, he could be hunting a bit when you don't see. When the lights go out our mandarins will hunt for a good 2 hours.

ChrisOFL · Dec 9, 2017

OrionN said:
Good luck with your Mandarin. I am sure he will do well after a few days. Can you post a current picture of him?
Regarding your clowns, the eat the egg if the egg died during development. IMO, clowns that laid eggs that developed and hatch is an indication of the fish good health. I would concentrate on get better food for your clowns. Better food for clowns does not mean frozen food. A wide variety of dry food is what clown fish need. Too much frozen food result in clown fish with poor health.
What is LRS?

I'm pretty sure the eggs are developing into fry because they go from orange to black dots with a clear sack. I can't say I've ever seen them hatch but the flow is too strong for them to survive in my tank anyway. I'm not really trying to breed fish, I just say they breed because they lay eggs regularly.

Sycoticrealm said:
You want to use the same pods he was hunting at the LFS and if he/she lost weight and isn't hunting it may be a bad sign.
I have had a lot of success with mandarins that are healthy using mysid shrimp. I have two other common copepod and amphipod

I have at least 4 species (3 small, one larger) in my tank that I know of plus amphipods. I'm pretty sure I have what he was eating at the store because it wasn't trained on food.

DSC reef said:
You should check out his fertility frenzy. @Cronicreefer is just leave him be, he could be hunting a bit when you don't see. When the lights go out our mandarins will hunt for a good 2 hours.

Yeah I hope so. He had been getting skinnier so it's starting to worry me. When I had a ruby dragonette it was super active and eating the same type of pods I have now. I'm hoping he will eat the baby brine as they should all be hatching right now.

ChrisOFL · Dec 9, 2017

Maritimer said:
If you've got 'pods on your glass, you've got them on your rocks as well - any possibility he's picking up some of those?

Was this guy in a copper-treated system at the LFS?

~Bruce

Doubtful because it came out of the invert tanks.

ChadLo · Dec 9, 2017

Cronicreefer said:
Last Saturday I purchased a Green Mandarin and ever since he has been in my tank, he has done very little hunting. I have pods all over the glass but he completely ignores them. I've tried feeding LRS frozen, arcti-pods, I dumped at least 7000+ pods into the tank and left the pumps off for over an hour so they could settle into the rocks, I've tried herding him to where the pods are most dense, and I currently have decapped baby brine shrimp eggs in some @Paul B style feeders. He has no signs of disease and none of my fish are picking on him either but his stomach has been completely shrunken in since Monday. Has anyone else experienced a mandarin not eating for an extended time after being introduced into a new environment? I know it is not normal for a mandarin to behave this way for so long but I feel like I'm literally waiting for him to starve himself to death

Ok, I've had 2 mandarins. The first one was exactly like yours not eating and ended up passing away. The second one, he has been doing awesome! Eats tiger pods, other copepods, and now when you turn the powerheads off he eats brine as well. If i were you, i know it would stress him but if he eats it may be worth it. In low light i would take him and put him in a small breeder and turn float it in your tank. Just put a little bit of brine and copepods in there for a little bit to see if he eats them. Otherwise leave him in the tank with powerheads off and try to get some baby brine to fall in front of him.

ChrisOFL · Dec 9, 2017

ChadLo said:
Ok, I've had 2 mandarins. The first one was exactly like yours not eating and ended up passing away. The second one, he has been doing awesome! Eats tiger pods, other copepods, and now when you turn the powerheads off he eats brine as well. If i were you, i know it would stress him but if he eats it may be worth it. In low light i would take him and put him in a small breeder and turn float it in your tank. Just put a little bit of brine and copepods in there for a little bit to see if he eats them. Otherwise leave him in the tank with powerheads off and try to get some baby brine to fall in front of him.

I would try this but once a fish is in my tank it is almost impossible to catch them without a fish trap. There are too many hiding spots I can't fit a net in. I probably should have put him in a breeder and trained him to eat frozen but I didn't think hunting for pods would be an issue.

Flippers4pups · Dec 9, 2017

My Mandarin eats small particle pieces of LRS reef frenzy with gusto. I turn off my wave pumps and keep the return pump running. The small pieces that float by her trigger a feeding response. Took some time for her to figure it out, but now it's like second nature. By the way, I have a ton of pods in my system. I figure the added food can't hurt.

Hopefully yours will figure it out as well.

On a side note, years ago I trained a Mandy to accept mysis pieces with a syringe and a acrylic tube. It was in a small system and pods were far and few in between. Worked well but was labor intensive to keep up.

ChadLo · Dec 9, 2017

Cronicreefer said:
I would try this but once a fish is in my tank it is almost impossible to catch them without a fish trap. There are too many hiding spots I can't fit a net in. I probably should have put him in a breeder and trained him to eat frozen but I didn't think hunting for pods would be an issue.

I would probably turn power heads off after the rest of the tank is fed and try to keep your hands at the top to try and get some brine to fall in front of him. Maybe you'll get lucky. Good luck!

Jongalt26 · Dec 11, 2017

Some years ago, when I got into the hobby, I had a Mandarin who was also starving. Able to tell by his belly being sunken in. I tried blood worms and he ended up loving them. (As did the other fish). A friend of mines Mandarin eats frozen clams lol.

Another option is catching and putting him in an intank acclimation box and try various foods to see what he will like. Don't keep the fish in the box for long though.

ChrisOFL · Dec 11, 2017

Jongalt26 said:
Some years ago, when I got into the hobby, I had a Mandarin who was also starving. Able to tell by his belly being sunken in. I tried blood worms and he ended up loving them. (As did the other fish). A friend of mines Mandarin eats frozen clams lol.

Another option is catching and putting him in an intank acclimation box and try various foods to see what he will like. Don't keep the fish in the box for long though.

I have tried every food at this point. I wish I could catch him but he always slips into a crevice. His hunting habits have never been proper in my tank. He literally sits in one small area and does not actively explore for food. I feel like maybe he was not healthy to begin with since his behavior is so abnormal.