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Best way to feed a Mandarin Goby......? (1 Viewer)

What type of Mandarin? Psychedelics are the most commonly seen in stores, but from that I have heard, spotted mandarins are easier to train onto frozen food.

My spotted eats (gut loaded)brine shrimp like a pig, as do my other dragonettes (Scooter Blenny, Red Scooter Blenny, Ruby Red). Biggest issue is that you need to turn pumps down to allow some food to settle to the bottom so they can pick at it rather than chase it down. If you get a mandarin that wont eat brine(total coin toss), try to find fish roe, they often like that too.
 
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The tank is about 3 years old. It's a RedSea Max 34 gallon. Not all that big. I'm sure he's eating the natural copepods that are in the tank but I'm thinking it's not going to take him long to deplete the population.
 
That's generally what happens. They eat hundreds of pods a day. people try to train mandarins (either genus) on to prepared foods, however their systems are designed to metabolize smalls food all day long -->pods. So even if you get it trained onto prepared foods, it's more of a supplement to a copepod population. Is the fish you picked up healthy currently?
 
The fish is healthy. I got a bottle of copepods and put half of it in the tank at night. I checked out a couple of the links posted and think I want to attempt to set up a little hatchery or something.......
 
you will need it, because Mandarins eat hundreds of copopods daily. I would also feed them baby brine shrimp
 
Managing a brine shrimp hatchery can take some work. Its doable, but you have to time your hatchings with the consumption of your fish to make sure you have a steady supply. The baby brine also should be fed as soon as possible after hatching for the best nutritional quality. When looking at your fish, what makes you think its healthy? Is its stomach sunken in? Upwards? Can you see any outline of its skeleton structure.
 
Oh gosh, I guess I assumed it's healthy because it's very colorful, active, his body looks just like the pictures I see of this fish online, etc. Is there a reason you think from your experience that it might not be healthy? His stomach does not appear to be sunken in. I don't really see any definite skeleton structure but then I really don't know what I'm looking for.
 
Its a very rare thing finding a healthy mandarin in captivity. Can you take any close photos? The dragonets body chamber is pretty small compared to the rest of its body. Look directly below the pectoral fins. If you can ever look beneath the fish. See if that cavity is concave or not, if its eating, it should have a slight bulge instead. These fish in my experience usually keep their color, even when stressed, so its a poor indication of health. Movement is good. They can get beyond a point of no return when they're too weak to hunt and don't move.
 
Not to be pessimistic, but if you do lose the mandarin (which is pretty common, they are very finicky fish). Here are some suggestions before you try again.

Try taking care of another member of the dragonette family for a while to get a feel for their needs. Scooter Blenny, Red Scooter Blenny are both pretty commonly available, and typically take to eating frozen food.

I get that mandarins are gorgeous fish, which is why so many people try to keep them.
If you purchase another one, insist to see it eating in the store before you purchase it, and make sure it will eat what you plan to feed it.
The spotted mandarins aren't seen as frequently in stores, at least that has been my experience. Not quite as colorful, but mine instantly decided it liked eating brine shrimp when I first introduced it to the tank.
 
Good advice by infinityends. Mandarins are a wonderful fish if they will eat frozen foods, in addition to an established copepod population of course. They are peaceful and actually pretty hardy to disease and parasites. The hardest part is meeting their dietary needs.
 
Mandarin_Jake said:
They are peaceful and actually pretty hardy to disease and parasites.
Click to expand...

Peaceful to a fault - Last time I tried to add a psychedelic to my tank my spotted (1/3 his size) went nuts on him and the poor guy wouldn't even try to fight back. Which I thought was weird because I was certain my spotted was female so I assumed adding the male wouldn't be an issue. But I have to assume that I was wrong and although my spotted has a very small dorsal spine it is likely a male. Also odd because my spotted has never even noticed that it lives with other fish before.

Hardy - Go slime coat, not a single dragonette in my tank had any issues when I had a minor ich breakout
 
At first, I mixed live pods in with frozen mysis, turned all powerheads off, and target feed. It took a few weeks, but my first dragonet started eating frozen. A year later, I got him a female partner and did the same thing. She picked up on frozen a lot faster! I've heard of that working for other people too. Good luck!
 
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