Keeping Mandarinfish

Douggie-Style

Douggie-Style

New member
Hello everone-

Has anyone been successful feeding a red mandarinfish AZOX or something similar....besides live pods?

Thanks

Doug
 
We used to have success with Nutramar Ova especially with the ORA ones at MCF. Otherwise I know you can train them using a breeder net and live brine (live brine gets stuck on net, mandarin sees it wiggling and eats in and you slowly switch out live brine for frozen brine and mysis) but that can be a bit of a pain.
 
Douggie-Style said:
Hello everone-

Has anyone been successful feeding a red mandarinfish AZOX or something similar....besides live pods?

Thanks

Doug
Click to expand...

I have some luck with mandarins and azox... But i've been lucky also that i was able to teach my spotted mandarin and green mandarin how to eat pe mysis..
 
What about some sort of POD trap? What if I trapped PODS from my big tank and put them in my little tank??????

I might try the AZOX.....I have a LFS,something fishy, that claims his mandarin is eating frozen brine....I am calling BS, but I will see tomorrow.....He said he's getting a large saltwater order on Friday as well.
 
I wouldn't be too quick to call BS on a mandarin eating frozen or prepared foods, many people have had luck and some even have theirs eating small sinking pellets. I'd ask to see it eating the frozen brine and then have it bagged up when you see it for yourself.
 
Mine eats mysis but it's a pain as I have to spot feed it and it's reluctant to eat most of the time

So I got a pod pack from reefs to go and it's enjoying pods now
 
FishBeard said:
I wouldn't be too quick to call BS on a mandarin eating frozen or prepared foods, many people have had luck and some even have theirs eating small sinking pellets. I'd ask to see it eating the frozen brine and then have it bagged up when you see it for yourself.
Click to expand...

+1
 
I've just always waited for a really stron pod population first, and then they'll learn by watching the other fish to eat frozen/prepared foods. And the easiest way to do that is throw a sponge in someone's fuge for a week or two, then shake it out in your tank. Another week or so, you'll see them crawling around everywhere.
 
KeishaKornbread said:
The ORA mandarins are trained to to eat prepared foods. I think it says it online on their site.
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After transfer, many fish revert back to a "safety mode," where whatever training they have goes right out the window. I've seen this with lions/anglers with eating frozen, and a lot of mandarins too.

It's definitely better that they are trained before shipping, but after high stress, it's normal to revert back to instinctual basics.
 
Bottom line....You will need pods... You will have to work and train this wonderful fish to eat prepared food, which could take time. No other way around it!!!
 
Brian at Reefwise posted on FB that he has ORA mandarins in and that they are eating Spectrum. I wonder if my Flame Hawk would get along?
 
Now I have a mandarin and a scooter blenny. The scooter blending when I got it was a bit thin. I was kinda afraid it would starve so I loaded the tank with pods. Well to my surprise one morning while feeding the tank frozen brine my blending swam up to the top of the tank grabbed the cube and darted really fast to break it up then ate what it could. It dud this for weeks every morning . She got big and fat. But now I added more power heads so she can't hover at the top and wait fir food so I stick some in the sand. Every morning she waits in the same spot for me to put the food in. If I don't she swims up and down the glass in zig zags till I do. She is my special needs fish. Ok now the mandarin is in my other tank. It has tons of pods and anphibapods that are hug that even steal food from my serpent star . If I look up at the booth of the tank from inside the sand I can like a nest of them. I move a rock and twenty go swimming out. I keep my two bigger tanks stocked with pods from the help of my five gallon. My crazy clown fish that I had to save a few times will host anything. It killed my red goni then hosted my green one and was never so big. They got among great till I had to move the fish and the coral didn't like it. The fish then host a xenia and now if finds home in a big Bush of algea Growning. It's like maidens hair. Long bushy looking . Easy to pull of in large clumps. The fish swats my with its tail when I pull some out. Then I rake it to the other tank and angels suck it down like spaghetti but after I knock all the pods out. And in a small clump I can see hundreds swimming off and at least 20-30 small anphibapods fall out. I do this every few weeks. And the five gallon is the only one of my three tanks with a working and living fuge. Some people don't like the look of algae growing in the display. But if it benefits the tank why not. It's houses food and is food for some. And if I ever get a rock that gets over grown I just throw it in the tank with the angels for a few days . To each there own but that's my routine for keeping fish like a mandarin.
 
Wow! What a great thread. So, what I am learning is to watch it eat. If its on frozen or even pellets go for it.....but one more question? What type of pellets? I do use NLS for my gobies and crabs. The rods food never makes it to the bottom. My fish love that stuff!
 
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