Green mandarin

[BedrockIOMC]

I got my first mandarin and if anyone has any tips for me I would love the help. I put a bottle of podes in the tank as well to help him have more to feed on. I'm hoping I can him to feed on some shrimp. Is there any tips anyone has to get him to start feeding on shrimp. Thanks to all.

 

[Kyle Rinker]

I would definately check out the feeder by @Paul B here: http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/diy-target-feeder-mandarinfish-pipefish-2804/
A single Mandarin can consume well over 1000 pods per day, so if your tank isn't quite large and very mature, I would try to emulate his design .

 

[Dree]

For the first month, you should do a bottle/bag of pods per week, to ensure you establish a healthy population. When trying to feed them frozen food, turn off the pumps, and offer the food with a turkey baster or something similar, and have it fall in front of him. Make sure the pieces are very small, the mandarins have very small mouthes.

 

[Apotack]

+1 on the @Paul B feeder

 

[Jesterrace]

I got my first mandarin and if anyone has any tips for me I would love the help. I put a bottle of podes in the tank as well to help him have more to feed on. I'm hoping I can him to feed on some shrimp. Is there any tips anyone has to get him to start feeding on shrimp. Thanks to all.

He is already hungry, you can see the dent in it's abdomen under the fins. One of the reasons why Mandarins are so difficult to keep is because they need to feed almost constantly and can decimate a pod population in a couple of days.

 

[Jesterrace]

For the first month, you should do a bottle/bag of pods per week, to ensure you establish a healthy population. When trying to feed them frozen food, turn off the pumps, and offer the food with a turkey baster or something similar, and have it fall in front of him. Make sure the pieces are very small, the mandarins have very small mouthes.

I thought the same thing about the mandy until I saw something that shocked the heck out of me. My green mandy had a chunk of frozen mysis float in front of it that was way too big for it. It swam up to it with it's little pursed lips and all of a sudden the mouth opened wide like a frog and it gobbled the whole chunk up. The point is that the little round lips are only the tip of it's mouth. Their actual mouths are much bigger and wider than they look.

 

[Isaac Alves]

I've had a mandarin for two years now. I've seen success in feeding him using PE Mysis sinking Pellets. I also feed a couple of different things. Here's my breakdown form my own personal experience:

1. I slow pumps down to feed so the food is distributed but sinks
2. I use an innovative Marine gourmet defroster and always place a brine enriched with spirulina as well as Rods Food.
3. I also use a shrimp feeder tube and dish to drop in PE Mysis pellets and my home-made mastick.
4. I've purchased twice, a large pack of amphipods/copepod deals from http://www.aquariumdepot.com --- Put them into a refugium...doesn't have to be fancy. you can even use a chaeto reactor. Amphipods are much more resilient and will be detritus scavengers but breed extensively if you have chaeto or just places to hide in your tank or refugium. I've seen the mandarin eat the small young amphipods as well as mini brittle stars who breed.
5. I make a similar food mix that is like mastick that I stick on rocks and on the glass.
6. I use an auto feeder that drops PE Mysis sinking pellets twice a day to ensure that the mandarin and the worms, stars and amphipods/copepods get fed.
7. I culture white worms that I drop into the shrimp tube. They seem to live for a some in the tank.
8. Try not to house with super voracious eaters.

 

[Jesterrace]

Number 8 was ultimately what helped do in mine. No matter what I tried I simply couldn't get the food to the mandarin fast enough and the other fish would zip in and grab it when it was literally an inch from it's face. A Mandarin is like an underwater hummingbird trapped in slow motion. It cocks it's head to the side and takes several jerky movements before it locks onto and grabs food. It's way too slow for the majority of fish. Even my Diamond Watchman Goby would beat it to the punch for food. Here was mine: