getting a mandarin to eat

[ScubaSteve]

I've used live white worms and blood worms. Mine seemed to go after the white worms with more gusto (if you can find them). Eventually start freezing them, then slowly start adding mysis. BOOM! Frozen trained mandarin.

[asylumdown]

Well this guy might not be 'my' mandarin. At lights out, there were literally two different kind of pods actually crawling right on him. No reaction. There's about 100 of the small kind within 2cm of his nose where he's sitting now and he doesn't even seem to see them. There's zero hunting behaviour at all, which as I understand is a bad sign. Hopefully he comes around tomorrow.

On the upside, giving him live food on a living algae substrate is going to have way less of an impact on the water quality in the transfer tanks.

[mrhasan]

I have heard that they like salmon eggs. Maybe give that a shot?

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

I have heard that they like salmon eggs. Maybe give that a shot?

I could see them going after capalan roe but I think salmon eggs are much too large for them to swallow (unless it's a big mandarin).

[The Guy]

I was advised not to get one until your tank is minimum 1 year, so @ 6 months in I couldn't resist getting this beautiful psychedelic he seemed to be hunting and pecking all the time but lost him after about a month, should have taken the advise given by my long time reefer friend.
My tank is a 90g with about 80lbs of LR and it's at 14 months now so I am trying again.
I have lots of chaeto in my sump which is loaded with pods and it's supporting which seems to be supporting the food chain for both my new Pych and a red scooter blenny.
So far so good. fingers crossed!

[Ron99]

Guess I've been lucky. My psychedelic mandarin came to me already eating frozen and pellets. She'll even take flake or that free gel food that came with my IO salt. I was in JL a little while back and noticed a spotted mandarin that looked to be eating mysis after they fed the tank there. So I took a chance and he is eating frozen mysis and bloodworm. Hasn't clued into pellets yet but I'm hoping once he's in the tank with the other mandarin and sees her eating pellets he'll take the hint.

So they can be trained onto other foods but I haven't really had to do it myself. Some of it might be luck too.

[magikof7]

I understand the need for QT BUT Mandarins have a very thick slime coat and are very resistant to disease. You might want to consider just putting him in your Display. Do some research on your own on that. I put my guy in my 29 gal right away because they can be hard to get to eat I figured the less stress the better and the chances of disease was very low.
Before anyone jumps all over me for not QT-ing fish. I do with all any new fish. I have some in qt right now but Mandarins are a little different. I did a lot of research before getting one and decided the chances of him dying in qt were higher than the risk of any disease.

I did reply on my tank build thread about my mandarin. I will copy and paste it here for others.

..."I didn't do anything to get my mandarin to eat frozen,(not intentionally anyway.) I don't feed frozen often nor did I need to because I had a crazy pod population in my fuge and DT of my other tank.

I can tell you what I think got him eating frozen...I turn off all flow, power heads and return pump. I fed the carnivore frozen cubes, brine shrimp and or blood worms Mixed together. I also fed frozen mysis shrimp. Because there was no flow the food sat on rocks, substrate, and Corals when the mandarin was over the food his fins would stir up the food and he would eat it when he saw it move. It also has to be very small pieces.
They are such slow hunters, I think the flow is just too much but you turn it off and he can hunt all he wants and his own fins make it move. It has to move and catch his attention but not so fast he can't "hunt" it.
I have seen others use a petrie dish with holes in it filled with store bought pods or frozen foods. Another method I have seen is a baby food jar with frozen food and small pellets, the mandarin can get in the jar but bigger fish can't."