Who has a Mandrin Dragonette that eats with the other fish?

[KWB]

I was just wondering who has a dragonette that eats any type of food other than pods found in the live rock. If you do, Did it happen by accident/conditioning? How did they start eating other stuff? I recently purchased one and would feel better if I could see it eating something with the other fish. it is constantly foraging the live rock and aquarium picking at stuff . but I just can't tell if it is picking or actually getting something to eat. My aquarium is 1.5 yrs old and well established and stable with lots of live rock stacked to to where there is lots of cracks,crevices, nooks and crannies. I do see the larger pods swimming around and thier "shed exoskeleton" floating in the currrent alot. I just don't want to lose the mandarin to starvation and probably worrying too much.

[Squiers007]

How long has it been in your tank? Sometimes they will take several days to get comfortable and start eating again. I have heard of people acclimating them to frozen foods, but I cant remember exactly how they did it. My friends just started eating frozen out of the blue one day! Kinda strange but it can happen.

[justahobby]

Hi, I hope you have success in conditioning him. They were the first fish I decided to own and the last fish I bought because of their ability to shy away from anything except the live food. I have 58 gallon with 30 gal sump. Entire system is about 2.5 yrs old. I use rubble piles, switch out chaeto in my display and fuge, and arrange my rock to have lots of small caves.

I bought a target mandarin after reading several testimonials claiming they accept frozen food more readily. After waiting and shopping I found a small one. Not tiny but fairly small. Smaller fish = smaller belly. I've had her for roughly 3 months. After reading your post I dropped some mysis and plankton (cyclops). This was the first time he ate and then ate again without spitting it out. He had tried various foods in the past including the above mentioned and immediately spitting the food out like a kid forced to eat spinach.

Things I have tried:
1. Cutting a small tubberware container. One hole for a long tube and a second hole to act as an entrance. I set the container at the bottom and allowed time for the fish to accept this new furniture. Then waited...............for a very long time for the mandarin to swim by. When he did I enticed him in by shooting plankton through the tube and into his "trough." He checked it out but wasn't interested. This method is worth a shot in my opinon.

2. Turned off powerheads. I used a small plastic pipette with the tip cut off to allow for bigger shrimp. I used the typical freshwater mysis and a smaller saltwater variety (don't rem. the brands). When he swam close to the top I gently shot 2-3 shrimp in his direction. It takes a few tries since the greedy fish will rush over. That's why I like method #1. This is the method that worked for me, but I am confident it was simply timing and not the method.

3. Using only a tube I would chase him around shooting food everywhere he swam. Not very effective :bigsmile:

[ballardjr2000]

I heard of doing number one basically making a "safe" spot for them to take there time and eat. read about it as well. i say give that shot. ^^^

[wesheltonj]

I have one and s/he eats everything I put in the tank. S/he preferance is Blood Worms, will eat this over Mysis, brine, or pods

[justahobby]

I have one and s/he eats everything .......

Little FYI if you are wanting to know their sex, the dorsal fin has a longer spike in front. If the spike is shorter and doesn't stick out very far, you have a female. If the spike is long, flowing, and travels their back, well then you got yourself a male.

[Kristy]

We have a mandarin in each tank (a target mandarin in the small tank and a green psychadelic mandarin in our big tank) and they both eat the frozen foods we feed our other fish, in addition to the pods they pick off our rocks all day long. One was just a matter of luck that she started taking the frozen, the other we bought from someone at MAAST who let us know she was eating already.

I would NOT say that you're just worrying too much, as the mandarins can deplete your pod population in a matter of weeks to months and then slowly starve to death, so there are lots of measures you can take to assure the continued good health of your fish. We add bottled pods periodically in addition to circulating some macro from our fuge on a regular basis, and creating rubble piles in the corners to encourage pod growth.

Check out this link from melev's reef for some great tips on this subject:
http://melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

And here is another link from melev with good info about mandarin care:
http://melevsreef.com/mandarin_care.html

[puretexn]

I feed the mandarin by placing a tube that is placed into the mouth of a cave and sticks out the top of the tank. I then drop a frozen block of daphnia in the tube. It melts slowly and creeps down the tube. The mandarin will find it as it makes its rounds. I fed my scooter this way, and he would swim up the tube before the scrimps would float down.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3868/img1242xkh.jpg

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1039/img1243z.jpg

[corkyGramma]

puretexen, thats a great technique.

I don't have one because I get to the lfs when the order gets there and you never know if they will "condition" to dead frozen food. Some shop attendents claim that their mandrin is eating frozen, but they seriously don't take the time to watch them eat. I almost bought one and I asked the worker to feed him in front of me-long story short, I walked out of their without a fish. I felt really sorry for that little guy and the countless mandrins that die in shops from starvation.

[Gilbertg78228]

i have a Male thats eats frozen and a female i got later on that eats frozen as well. at the fish store they said he only eats live food. i have had my tank going almost 2 years now and i have come to find out anything can happen. my two mandarins both eat the brime. sometimes i even think they are trying to mate! blows me away watching them. i even have a scooter in there that eats frozen food. i have lots of water movement. 125g with a 55 g fuge.

[KWB]

Thanks for the replies! I just don't want this one to starve either. I will keep a eye on things and see if it looks like it is getting fatter or skinnier and decide what action to take. I added a bottle of tiggerpods the other night for good measure after lights out with the filters off for a while. All I can do is pray it will start picking up the frozen stuff and there is plenty of pods for it to eat. I have been doing research on the internet and will just have to monitor the situation. I just got it Saturday and so far it appears to be doing well. BTW his belly is level with his body not plump or sunken in either and is very active.

[KWB]

Well bad news, Found it dead today. It was swimming around like everything was fine last night before the lights went out. I knew better when I bought it that it probably was not a good idea. If I buy another one it will be a confirmed frozen/prepared food eater. Somehow I feel responsible, but truthfully it had the best chance of making it since there was plenty of pods for it to eat in the aquarium. Some things are beyond your control. The joys of trying to make your own little piece of ocean.

[JoshOdphi]

sorry bout your loss...i had one for about 8 months...at first it was very hard to get it to eat frozen but nevertheless it got used to it....i think it all depends on the fish's personality as well...u cant jus condition them to ur liking....but i would definitely give it a shot...im debating about gettin another one as well...jus waiting for my 37 to thrive with pod to keep enough pod population for him...

[alton]

With it only lasting five days, I don't think it was to be and it was nothing you did. I have two in a 200 and both came from smaller tanks where they did very well. As a matter of fact I think they did better in the smaller tanks, than the 200. A friend had one in a 29 and it doubled in size before moving it to his 125. My two eat FW Mysis, Mysis, Blood Worms, and Pods.

[Europhyllia]

Matt Wittenrich (the guy whoe successfully bred both the spotted and the green mandarins) wrote that spotted mandarins are easier to train to accept frozen food than the greens.
That's why I chose to get the spotted ones.
I used Matt Pederson (Marine Fish and Ornamental Breeders) method of mandarin training and within 2 weeks I had my two spotteds eating frozen food and gaining weight on it.
You never know what is going to happen to your pod population. I think it's always a good idea to train your fish to accept frozen in addition to the natural pod population to ensure continued success/supply.
Most people wouldn't just get a pet cat and plan to let it sustain itself on the mice it finds in the backyard.
Why take the chance with such a beautiful fish?
It would be awful to watch it starve.
I started them in a 10 gallon tank with live mysids, etc. and then weaned them over onto frozen food. Selco enriched small bloodworms are a favorite - definitely worth trying!
I now have one of them in my 130g tank with PJ cardinals and clownfish.
I turn my Rio Seio pumps off (using the feed timer) because the mandarins don't like to catch their food in heavy flow and use a kent sea squirt (had to make the hole a little bigger) to deliver the food.
That works really well. He's eating pods but he's still after the frozen food too.
Unfortunately the person that sold the two of them to me didn't know how to sex them and instead of having a female and a male I now have two males. Obviously the two of them don't get along so one of them is in a breeder basket until I find a new home for it.
If anybody knows of somebody in San Antonio that has a female spotted for sale or trade (even if she doesn't eat frozen) or is looking for a frozen food eating male let me know!

[Calvert13]

How long has it been in your tank? Sometimes they will take several days to get comfortable and start eating again. I have heard of people acclimating them to frozen foods, but I cant remember exactly how they did it. My friends just started eating frozen out of the blue one day! Kinda strange but it can happen.



Yea it did, and it was AWESOME.:applause:



.... "easiest" way and the best way is to use a breeder net in the main system. You first start with live brine .... then live and a little frozen brine and mysis then little less live and so on .... and so on....


If it's not moveing they usually won't eat it so doing the method "trains" them on frozen.





..... but yea, I got lucky.:bigsmile:

[Noober]

Sorry, but I have another post called bloodworms where I mentioned some of the same results. Quickly I noticed my red, or mabe he's a blue, manderian only eating microscopic pods after the big visible ones started running scarse, and my copperband would not eat the regular food either, but I noticed he'd tare up a speghetti worm out of the sand and munch it down. I then went and bought a pack of bloodworms. The copperband loved them and would eat them until they were gone. My manderian still would not eat. I usually turn the feed cycle on when I feed so that the pumps dont thrash the frozen food around, but I started leaving them on only when I threw the blood worms in, now the manderian chases them and eats them like crazy. Thanks for all the info everyone and good luck with keeping fish fed and happy! :)

[Europhyllia]

I think another nice benefit to feeding your fish is that they respond to it much better as far as coming out in the open goes.
I've heard people complain about rarely seeing their mandarins in a big tank.
With mine I usually can find him (although a 2 inch fish in a 125 tank with 140 pound of liverock is awfully small) and when I turn off the pumps for feeding time he is right there because he knows what's going to happen.

[OrionN]

I used to keep a pair in my 450 g system. They are out all the time and spawned every 6-10 days or so. They are the most striking and unususal looking of my fishes