Biota Mandarin feeding

[JayFish4004]

Curious if any of you have experience in keeping Biota Mandarins. I have been feeding them xsmall TDO pellets, and they have grown quite a bit since receiving them.

My question is at what stage do they graduate to larger pellets like the small instead of xsmall? They seem to be grabbing mysis out of the water column now, so I’m curious if I need to start stepping up the pellet size and when it would be good to do so? Or are they going to need the xsmall pellets for life?

 

[ZombieEngineer]

My mandarins (wild caught not captive bred) never took small pellets even at fully grown 3 inches length. They would only take pods, amphipods, small mysis, small fish eggs, and x-small new life spectrum pellets.

 

[KK's Reef]

Curious if any of you have experience in keeping Biota Mandarins. I have been feeding them xsmall TDO pellets, and they have grown quite a bit since receiving them.

My question is at what stage do they graduate to larger pellets like the small instead of xsmall? They seem to be grabbing mysis out of the water column now, so I’m curious if I need to start stepping up the pellet size and when it would be good to do so? Or are they going to need the xsmall pellets for life?

Interested in getting a Biota mandarin.

Are you placing the pellets near them, or are they grabbing them from the water column?

 

[JayFish4004]

Interested in getting a Biota mandarin.

Are you placing the pellets near them, or are they grabbing them from the water column?

They are 100% worth it - got a pair from @Biota_Marine maybe 4-5 months ago and could not love them more. I use a pipette and drop 1/16th of a tsp of pellets in - mostly target feeding it near where they are but also littering across different areas on the rock they like to navigate to. I also shut off the pumps for 30-45min to make sure they have time to get em.

i also have a citron goby, neon goby, pair of barnacle blennies, pair of bluestreak cardinals, and a pinkbar goby so I have to go a little extra. The citron is a pig haha. My 2 emerald crabs also love em. My fish have never been healthier once I started feeding the tdo pellets.

Additionally - as a safety measure I subscribe to AlgaeBarn and reload the tank with pods every 4 weeks just to ensure they stay nice and fat.

 

[jrill]

I feed a combo of the small tdo pellets and mysis pellets once a day at noon and frozen foods later in the day. My Biota mandarin eats from all of it. I turn the pumps off for 10 minutes each time. I've seen him come to the surface to grab pellets. I also thrown in baby brine shrimp a couple of times a week and pods now and again. He's going well after a year and a half.

 

[JayFish4004]

I feed a combo of the small tdo pellets and mysis pellets once a day at noon and frozen foods later in the day. My Biota mandarin eats from all of it. I turn the pumps off for 10 minutes each time. I've seen him come to the surface to grab pellets. I also thrown in baby brine shrimp a couple of times a week and pods now and again. He's going well after a year and a half.

Would you recommend I move to the small pellets from the xsmall? Im wondering if small pellets might be less wasteful in the water but I worry they may not be big enough yet to fit em in their mouths

 

[jrill]

On the tdo I use the B2 and the mysis pellets are the 1mm.

 

[JayFish4004]

On the tdo I use the B2 and the mysis pellets are the 1mm.

Ahh okay gotcha - you’re actually using a smaller granular size than I am. For what it’s worth you could easily move up to C1 - Im actually debating going to C2.

Type	Shape	Size
A	Granule	75 – 250 µm
B1	Granule	250 – 360 µm
B2	Granule	360 – 650 µm
C1 / X-SMALL	Granule	580 – 840 µm
C2 / SMALL	Granule	840 – 1410 µm
EP1 / MEDIUM	Extruded Pellet	1.7 mm
EP2 / LARGE	Extruded Pellet	2.3 mm

 

[JayFish4004]

I feed a combo of the small tdo pellets and mysis pellets once a day at noon and frozen foods later in the day. My Biota mandarin eats from all of it. I turn the pumps off for 10 minutes each time. I've seen him come to the surface to grab pellets. I also thrown in baby brine shrimp a couple of times a week and pods now and again. He's going well after a year and a half.

One question I do have - Im going out of town soon and I dont trust my cat sitter to turn the pumps on and off, so Im gonna resort to having her put the mysis and tdo pellets in at full current. Any hope the mandarins will get anything that way?

I also have a jar of pods from AlgaeBarn coming as a safety net in case they don’t, but very curious on this. It’ll be my first vacation with ‘em.

 

[KK's Reef]

One question I do have - Im going out of town soon and I dont trust my cat sitter to turn the pumps on and off, so Im gonna resort to having her put the mysis and tdo pellets in at full current. Any hope the mandarins will get anything that way?

I also have a jar of pods from AlgaeBarn coming as a safety net in case they don’t, but very curious on this. It’ll be my first vacation with ‘em.

I think the fish will be fine for a week. I've left my tank alone for 8 days and all of the fish and inverts were fine. I just dumped a bottle of pods and double-dosed phyto on the day I left.

 

[busfullofderps]

I had years of success with using PE Pellets Saltwater Fish Food (1 mm) with my mandarin. Pellets that made it to the floor of the tank were picked, slowly. All powerheads were turned off for 10 min while feeding to ensure the mandarin was able to locate them.

 

[Wasabiroot]

Curious if any of you have experience in keeping Biota Mandarins. I have been feeding them xsmall TDO pellets, and they have grown quite a bit since receiving them.

My question is at what stage do they graduate to larger pellets like the small instead of xsmall? They seem to be grabbing mysis out of the water column now, so I’m curious if I need to start stepping up the pellet size and when it would be good to do so? Or are they going to need the xsmall pellets for life?

Mine eats the small, he's about 3 inches or so and at least a year old. Not sure if that helps.

 

[AZReef13]

I got a Biota Mandarin close to 4 years ago, she was eating pods, and PE Calamus, was advise is what biota use to raise them on.. Plus Algae barn Dragon Roe... Now she feeds on Pe Mysis in water column. and Pods.... she actually comes out durning feeding time

 

[JayFish4004]

I had years of success with using PE Pellets Saltwater Fish Food (1 mm) with my mandarin. Pellets that made it to the floor of the tank were picked, slowly. All powerheads were turned off for 10 min while feeding to ensure the mandarin was able to locate them.

Thats good advice! How old did your mandarin end up getting?

 

[busfullofderps]

Thats good advice! How old did your mandarin end up getting?

I bought him from my LFS when it was ~1", he jumped and got stuck in the tank lid net at about 3-3.5". He was in my tank for nearly 2 years. Manual feeding method made him very friendly too.

 

[jrill]

One question I do have - Im going out of town soon and I dont trust my cat sitter to turn the pumps on and off, so Im gonna resort to having her put the mysis and tdo pellets in at full current. Any hope the mandarins will get anything that way?

I also have a jar of pods from AlgaeBarn coming as a safety net in case they don’t, but very curious on this. It’ll be my first vacation with ‘em.

They probably will. My pellets are fed with my Hydros controller and auto feeder. The controller turns my pumps off for 15 minutes at feeding time.

 

[JayFish4004]

I bought him from my LFS when it was ~1", he jumped and got stuck in the tank lid net at about 3-3.5". He was in my tank for nearly 2 years. Manual feeding method made him very friendly too.

Aww sorry to hear that - I lost one of my pinkbar gobies in a similar fashion - they were a bonded pair. Still feel bad for Rocket the remaining one - he seems to look for him from time to time

 

[JayFish4004]

They probably will. My pellets are fed with my Hydros controller and auto feeder. The controller turns my pumps off for 15 minutes at feeding time.

Good to know - their bellies are nice and round I get the impression they are well fed so even a couple days without I think they should be okay

 

[john92708]

They probably will. My pellets are fed with my Hydros controller and auto feeder. The controller turns my pumps off for 15 minutes at feeding time.

can you post a picture of your auto feeder and controller setup? planning a trip for 2 weeks and need to setup an auto feeder. does your auto feed just drop the pellets on the surface or on the bottom? Got my mandarin pair 6 months ago and I been using a pipettes to put the food inside a seashell for them. I don't think my would eat from the surface so need to find a way to pump food to the bottom

 

[john92708]

I might have come up with a workable solution using a small pump, old Eheim fish feeder, and a 2 inch plastic tubing. The small pump should push the food to the bottom if I set it up to constantly pump/drop a small amount of water in to the tubing from the top down. the feeder would drop the pellets in to the tube and the water flow should push it down into the seashell