QT Green Spot Mandarin?/

[brandnewreefer]

Hey Reefers!! Hope everyone is doing well I just had a couple of questions on quarantining for Green Spot Mandarins. I know they're recommended food of choice is copepods, and I have copepods from algae barn with a whole refugium setup in my tank so they are breeding regularly and I have a lot of them. Although, for my QT what should I feed a green spot mandarin? I want to make sure I QT all of my critters going into my tank because I don't want another disease outbreak.... :mad: Thankfully fish can't get covid

 

[Nigel35]

pods would be good, if you can try to get it to eat mysis or brine shrimp that would be good!

 

[ichthyogeek]

Now's a great time to see if you can wean the fish onto frozen and prepared foods! Start with live (gut loaded!) adult brine shrimp mixed with a little bit of frozen (also gut loaded!) adult brine shrimp. Increase the ratio of frozen:live. Once the fish is eating all frozen and no live, mix in mysis and/or pellets!

Also, consider a baby brine shrimp feeder.

 

[ThRoewer]

I would always suggest running at least a Tigger Pod culture in a 5-gallon bucket or bussing tray. There is simply no better food to get finicky eaters to fatten up with. They are easily cultured in old tank water and if it isn't too cold or hot where you live you can culture them outside.
Next in line would be a brine shrimp hatchery. That is actually the easiest live food to offer, but unfortunately not the most nutritious.
Finally, you should try to raise some brine shrimp to adults. Live adult brine shrimp are the best way to train difficult fish to recognize them as food and then also accept frozen brine shrimp.

Using those feeds I managed to rescue a bullseye mandarin male who was literally just skin and bones and ultimately got him to stuff himself so much with frozen brine shrimp that he looks like a gravid female.

BTW, with mandarins diseases are usually my last worry - their skin is too toxic for the usual suspects (Ich, Velvet, and "flukes"), and what they can't poison they just slime off. Picking one that is looking healthy and who is searching for pods and then getting them to eat frozen is usually all that is needed with them.

 

[AfaceInTheCrowd]

I would probably use tank transfer method with a mandarin .. they don’t tolerate copper .not sure If they stand it so you will have to check but maybe use a H202 dip also... As for food you may find it takes frozen quite easily with no competition in the tank, but would have a few cultures of pods goin just in case