getting a mandarin to eat

[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."

[Myka]

I think you are smart to be quarantining your Mandarin and training it onto frozen food. In my experience, almost all Mandarins can be trained onto frozen food, but few will reliably take pellets or flake.

I've trained many onto my homemade frozen mash. I always start with frozen plain brine shrimp, then wean to gut loaded brine, then mysis, then homemade mash. For some reason, males seem to be easier to train and Target Mandarins are definitely easier too.

I use a little square jar (that won't roll) on its side in a low flow area away from rocks. I put a couple brine shrimp in there in the morning and then siphon them out in the evening. This goes on for usually 1-2 weeks and the shrimp will start to disappear. Then I feed more shrimp in the morning - they will eat 10 brine shrimp happily. Eventually the Mandarin will start to hang out in the jar at feeding time and will eat like a pig right after I feed him. That's when I know he's weaned well.

Originally Posted by magikof7

I understand the need for QT BUT Mandarins have a very thick slime coat and are very resistant to disease.

Mandarins can still be vectors.


Sent from my Dungeon using mad Ninja Skillz.

[asylumdown]

yah I'm not willing to risk aborting the QT period. My tank is actually C. irritans free and has been for a year. It's not just at low levels, it's not present, which has taken a ridiculous amount of work. If I were to introduce it now, I'd probably have massive losses because my fish likely have very little immunity. And even if I didn't have losses, I have a powder blue that I just returned to full health with perfect, unmarred skin. It would suck nuts to watch him deal with repeated outbreaks. I can't see any visible pustules on this fish, and there weren't on any others in the tank he came from, but I've seen ich in that tank in the past (I've seen ich in pretty much every tank in every store in the city at some point really), so it's just not worth the risk.

and I'm not sure if this guy is going to make it. If anything he's even more lethargic today. I've seen mandarins hunt before, and he's not doing anything like that. There's tons of pods in the tank now, but he's just ignoring them. Someone has offered to bring me some larger pods which I'm going to try out and see if those will entice him, but I'm starting to suspect that this fish may have been captured using one of the more questionable methods. This sort of a thing smells a little like a cyanide caught fish to me, I should have asked where the order came from.

Anyway, he's still alive, but I can't do anything if he won't even eat live food, so the best I can do is keep presenting them until he either starts eating, or he expires.

[Skimmer Juice]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

yah I'm not willing to risk aborting the QT period. My tank is actually C. irritans free and has been for a year. It's not just at low levels, it's not present, which has taken a ridiculous amount of work. If I were to introduce it now, I'd probably have massive losses because my fish likely have very little immunity. And even if I didn't have losses, I have a powder blue that I just returned to full health with perfect, unmarred skin. It would suck nuts to watch him deal with repeated outbreaks. I can't see any visible pustules on this fish, and there weren't on any others in the tank he came from, but I've seen ich in that tank in the past (I've seen ich in pretty much every tank in every store in the city at some point really), so it's just not worth the risk.

and I'm not sure if this guy is going to make it. If anything he's even more lethargic today. I've seen mandarins hunt before, and he's not doing anything like that. There's tons of pods in the tank now, but he's just ignoring them. Someone has offered to bring me some larger pods which I'm going to try out and see if those will entice him, but I'm starting to suspect that this fish may have been captured using one of the more questionable methods. This sort of a thing smells a little like a cyanide caught fish to me, I should have asked where the order came from.

Anyway, he's still alive, but I can't do anything if he won't even eat live food, so the best I can do is keep presenting them until he either starts eating, or he expires.

smart to not take the chance , especially with a cowfish in the tank. Cowfish can get ich super easy and other diseases ...

[GROPP]

[quote=magikof7;875677]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 didn't do anything to get my mandarin to eat frozen,(not intentionally anyway.)

+1

Mine eats mysis, flakes, pellets, even small pieces of Nori, been in my tank going on 5 months now, He eats pods all day long but when I feed he always eats a bit of everything. I do feed pretty heavy for all my tangs though, and I do have a scooter blenny in the tank for over a year that eats everything too, maybe he learnt from him...

[Myka]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

Anyway, he's still alive, but I can't do anything if he won't even eat live food, so the best I can do is keep presenting them until he either starts eating, or he expires.

If they are already skinny they are REALLY difficult to get eating - any kind of food. I've had the best experiences buying Mandarins the day after they arrive at the store, and only from shipments when they are still fat. If he's not hunting that is not a good sign - questionable collection method or not (could be disease too).

[halwake]

I'm 2for2 now mandarin training. Put in breeder net for 2 weeks suspended in tank. Add some frozen brine couple times a day, usually takes a couple days for them to start picking at it. It sticks to the mesh and moves with the current, think this helps the feeding response. Start to introduce mysis. Usually takes a few more days before they will take it. Then they should almost take any frozen like bloodworms and such. Have not had luck with pellets yet. After 2 weeks, into tank. Spot feed with baster, mandarin comes right up to it. Problem now is all fish recognize the baster as a source of food and come in. Had my first mandarin trained to go into a small jar where his food was it to protect it from the other fish "mandarin diner". New one will go here and there but not regularly. Mine is the psych. Red mandarin. He hunts for pods all day and gobbles up any frozen I can get to him. He is a slow eater so it's tough to get him fed before the other fish move in.

Good luck, beautiful fish