New Mandarin Dragonet Not Eating

[Anak’s Reef]

Thank you! She’s currently eating the mix of food I add to the tank and then I see her peck at pods periodically. I will be setting up a tank to culture them next week.
I’m having trouble seeing the difference between a fat mandarin and a skinny one via photos. I showed my LFS a photo of her and they said she seemed good and to make sure the head doesn’t seem to get proportionally lager. They also told me that it’s a good sign she flares her fins at me, as they don’t do that in a deficit. It appears her stomach is the widest part of her. If I see any signs of her losing weight
I do plan on giving her away.

here are some pics of her - I’ve had her since December 1. How’s she look? I’ve been told it seems she’s grown since I got her but I can’t tell.

So beautiful! Yes it definitely awesome that she flares her fins. I never realized that mandarins don’t always do that because my mandarin does it all the time. You mandarin looks awesome! Keep feeding her a lot! She does have the slightest line, but I wouldn’t worry unless it gets more visible. Yeah, your doing an awesome job!! Unless you are seeing it starving, I wouldn’t give her away h less it’s too much for you too. I believe that moving them causes them more stress and they could be bullied by other fish mu mandarin was nipped by my clowns the first time we released her.

 

[djryan2000]

So beautiful! Yes it definitely awesome that she flares her fins. I never realized that mandarins don’t always do that because my mandarin does it all the time. You mandarin looks awesome! Keep feeding her a lot! She does have the slightest line, but I wouldn’t worry unless it gets more visible. Yeah, your doing an awesome job!! Unless you are seeing it starving, I wouldn’t give her away h less it’s too much for you too. I believe that moving them causes them more stress and they could be bullied by other fish mu mandarin was nipped by my clowns the first time we released her.

Got it, thank you for the advice! I'll definitely up the feedings. I have been a little lazy with them the last week or so as its finals week. I'll be sure to stay on top and watch her for the line. If you don't mind ill attach another photo sometime in January to see what you think? My LFS has stated that they will certainly take her as they have the pods to sustain numerous mandarins simultaneously.

 

[blaxsun]

they still need pods. .. their digestive tract is short and not efficient so they still need to eat often. I suppose on could keep it alive maybe if you fed it 6 times a day with something like roe and live worms.

Any thing they steals food like shrimp or clowns and such is an issue as you are finding out as a mandarin will often just swim away and give up its food as they are generally slow eaters.

make a live brine shrimp feeder for her for freshly hatched brine shrimp and start dosing pods would be a good start.

I had 6 of them for many years (5 or so?) but got rid of them because it was too much of a time commitment when I started a new job. Yah...

Depends on the Mandarin. Mine is fed once a day and is doing just fine (I'm sure he hunts in the background, too). I wouldn't exactly term call him a slow eater - deliberate is probably a more accurate description.

I generally don't have to worry about other fish stealing food as they typically focus on the food near the top of the tank whereas the Mandarin focuses on food that floats down near the rocks.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Got it, thank you for the advice! I'll definitely up the feedings. I have been a little lazy with them the last week or so as its finals week. I'll be sure to stay on top and watch her for the line. If you don't mind ill attach another photo sometime in January to see what you think? My LFS has stated that they will certainly take her as they have the pods to sustain numerous mandarins simultaneously.

Sure, you can send me a pm or just post it here! Would love to see how your mandarin is doing! Post it on the Let’s see your mandarin threads as well! That’s great, usually I don’t recommend LFS unless you know they can take care of it. It’s good that you have an LFS that can handle them in case of any emergency!

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Depends on the Mandarin. Mine is fed once a day and is doing just fine (I'm sure he hunts in the background, too). I wouldn't exactly term call him a slow eater - deliberate is probably a more accurate description.

I generally don't have to worry about other fish stealing food as they typically focus on the food near the top of the tank whereas the Mandarin focuses on food that floats down near the rocks.

Yup, I agree but you feeding your mandarin only prepared foods or pods as well? If you are only doing prepared foods, I don’t think that’s enough for a baby mandarin or an adult.

 

[blaxsun]

Yup, I agree but you feeding your mandarin only prepared foods or pods as well? If you are only doing prepared foods, I don’t think that’s enough for a baby mandarin or an adult.

Only frozen for my mandy. He's been eating and growing nonstop since I got him, but as I said - it depends entirely on the fish. Mine was eating brine shrimp before he even arrived home in my tank, which is extremely rare and unusual (he wasn't captive bred).

This is exactly what I'm feeding our Mandarin:
* Piscine Energetics Calanus
* Hikari Bloodworms
* Hikari Brine shrimp
* Piscine Energetics Mysis shrimp

He also gets a daily dose of some Aquaforest Fish V fixed in with the calanus and brine. As I said, I'm sure he's hunting some fresh copepods as well (Apex Tiggerpods), and he might even be snacking on some of the red seaweed on occasion.

 

[Anak’s Reef]

Only frozen for my mandy. He's been eating and growing nonstop since I got him, but as I said - it depends entirely on the fish. Mine was eating brine shrimp before he even arrived home in my tank, which is extremely rare and unusual (he wasn't captive bred).

This is exactly what I'm feeding our Mandarin:
* Piscine Energetics Calanus
* Hikari Bloodworms
* Hikari Brine shrimp
* Piscine Energetics Mysis shrimp

He also gets a daily dose of some Aquaforest Fish V fixed in with the calanus and brine. As I said, I'm sure he's hunting some fresh copepods as well (Apex Tiggerpods), and he might even be snacking on some of the red seaweed on occasion.

That’s awesome! He might have been trained a bit to eat prepared or he just decided himself. Well, that means your mandarin is on pods and frozen. That’s nice.

 

[blaxsun]

That’s awesome! He might have been trained a bit to eat prepared or he just decided himself. Well, that means your mandarin is on pods and frozen. That’s nice.

He decided himself. I picked him out at the LFS and waited a few days while he made the decision to try the brine shrimp. Then I waited a few more days just to make sure the new food took before taking him home. It took a few weeks but he eventually gave the mysis and bloodworms a try. It could've just as easily gone the other way - but I had a 6th sense about this fish.

He came straight from the wild and was probably the largest Mandarin I've ever seen (close to 3"), so maybe that had some bearing on his willingness to try frozen (although he's even larger now).

 

[Spazizz]

Mine only eats frozen adult brine, she gorges herself on them. Cyclopods, mysis, bloodworms, live black worms are all a no go. It sucks because my first mandarin 10 years ago ate every thing including flake food.

 

[josvanmeer]

The problem is BIOTA sells these fish extremely tiny. their mouths are so tiny they cant fit anything in there but the tiniest of particles. The trick to train them to eat frozen and pellets is to get a bigger specimen, from the wild. Even then it takes persistence. Took mine two weeks but she ate Hikari Marine pellets and frozen brine/mysis etc, whatever I fed the tank. Also its important to turn the flow completely off when feeding them, they are very slow eaters.

 

[djryan2000]

Wow that’s awesome!! I’ve heard that a lot of people have success with bloodworms, glad it worked for you!!

As promised here is an update!

I’m currently feeding her 1-2x daily while monitoring her weight. She’s definitely a little chubster!! She’s also a lot bigger. I bought stuff to automate her feeding so I could feed her 5-6x daily but am holding off because I don’t want to add unnecessary nutrients and she’s always in different spots and I’m not sure if she’d go to the food if a doser squirted it in.

 

[OrionN]

As promised here is an update!

I’m currently feeding her 1-2x daily while monitoring her weight. She’s definitely a little chubster!! She’s also a lot bigger. I bought stuff to automate her feeding so I could feed her 5-6x daily but am holding off because I don’t want to add unnecessary nutrients and she’s always in different spots and I’m not sure if she’d go to the food if a doser squirted it in.

That is a small Male, not a female. Don't put him together with another male or a larger female. Either of these possibility will result in him getting beat up.
He either is too young to have a long 1st spike or have his spike broke off. If you look at the shape of the first part of the dorsal fin, you can easily tell if the mandarin is male or female just by the shape of it with or without spike.
Here is a picture of the dorsal of a female Mandarin (picture on the internet, not my picture)

and here is the picture of your fish. Easy to tell the different shape of the two dorsal fins

 

[djryan2000]

That is a small Male, not a female. Don't put him together with another male or a larger female. Either of these possibility will result in him getting beat up.
He either is too young to have a long 1st spike or have his spike broke off. If you look at the shape of the first part of the dorsal fin, you can easily tell if the mandarin is male or female just by the shape of it with or without spike.
Here is a picture of the dorsal of a female Mandarin (picture on the internet, not my picture)

and here is the picture of your fish. Easy to tell the different shape of the two dorsal fins

Thank you! Somewhat ironically, she was actually named Mulan after the Disney character. Guess I had it the wrong way

 

[Anak’s Reef]

That is a small Male, not a female. Don't put him together with another male or a larger female. Either of these possibility will result in him getting beat up.
He either is too young to have a long 1st spike or have his spike broke off. If you look at the shape of the first part of the dorsal fin, you can easily tell if the mandarin is male or female just by the shape of it with or without spike.
Here is a picture of the dorsal of a female Mandarin (picture on the internet, not my picture)

and here is the picture of your fish. Easy to tell the different shape of the two dorsal fins

Hmm, mine looks the same as his but I’m 99% sure she’s a female. She rarely opens her fin to full extent. But when she does, it definitely looks like a female. It could be that his just isn’t opening “it’s” fin to full. But who knows, I wouldn’t add another one until you can really find out the gender.

 

[OrionN]

in both cases, the front of the fins point toward the head means it is fully extended.
Male

Female

 

[Anak’s Reef]

in both cases, the front of the fins point toward the head means it is fully extended.
Male

Female

Good to know. You sound like you know more so I’ll trust that. But anyway, I’m not sure. I usually see her fin like his, but I’m starting to see more female fin at some times. Not sure but yeah. We’ll see as she’s gets older.

 

[djryan2000]

in both cases, the front of the fins point toward the head means it is fully extended.
Male

Female

Mine originally looked like the female when he was tiny but now it’s clear as day that you’re right - I have a male.