Ora spotted mandarin Pair won't eat

[Thizz]

Got a pair of mandarins from an Ora group buy a LFS owner organized.
It was Wednesday of last week the 12th.
Acclimated for 1.5 hours,got to the LFS about 30 mins after shipment arrived to get them
As fast as I can to eliminate extra streets to fish.

Having bad luck,ordered some ova from marine depot Thursday morning but they haven't even sent it out yet. Should have ordered from dfs since they obviously have better respect for customers and send orders out the same day you order unlike lazy marine depot.
Anyways back to the point...

I have tried mysis,blood worms,brine,and a mixture of all I put into a smoothie blender to make the particles smaller just to experiment.tried pellets with and without garlic...even crushed the pellets into 3 different sizes even until it because powdery...still nothing.
They start to move once the food is in the tank but don't even try it.
I turn off flow for about 30 mins and even left the room with the camera recording the tank just to see if they eat when I'm gone.still nothing.
I feel jipped by ora so far,unless the ova actually works,and that's if md wants to send it lol.
I don't even have any competing fish.i took my wrasse and flame angel pair to the LFS just so the mandarins can have a good advantage at getting food since my clowns are lazy and never leave the anemone.

And the worst part is that the female I got was really skinny if you take a look at the pic where I was acclimating them the female (smaller one) has little to no plump on the belly unlike the make which is decent in size.

They both won't graze for pods at all even though my tank is full of them.
So the only thing that keeps me going now is that whenever I dump a big load of food in the tank the two mandarins start to move and act exited but don't even try anything.
I've literally tried every way I can that i read online to try feeding them...shot glass...small jar...target feeding.
I've had food even fall on them or right in front of them with some flow just so it moves and still nothing.

I think my last resort will be to put them
In a breeder cage and start over from there.
That's if the ova doesn't work,which Im not confident in.but il give that the Benifit of the doubt.

 

[VelasCorals]

The female does look pretty skinny. I used to work at a lfs part time and when I worked with Ora they told me they fed new life spectrum.

 

[mainereefer]

I always keep mandarins in acclimation until they eat. they learn the pellets ore food quickly with nothing to look at but the pellets

 

[_Alex_]

we did the jar trick on 2 of them.. but i left the jar in there for about a week with no food just to get them swimming in and out of it... then i started puting NLS pellets in it and letting them soak in water for a bit so they became nice and soft. then woudl just make sure and keep pellets in it all the time and eventually they started eatign them. and ours where not ORA.. ive heard a lot of stories that ORA's are harder to get to eat prepared foods then any other you coudl get.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

You are doing the right things. The best thing to do is keep trying. What size tank are they in?

 

[Thizz]

Male is eating...female looks like she's going to die ):
She was very skinny

 

[Mr E Wrasse]

I'm not sure if spotted mandarins eating habits are different from green or red mandarins, but my greens always eat the pods that live in my tank. They never eat the food i feed the other fish, only the pods (which my tank is full of)

 

[Thizz]

They are ora and are suposidly raised on prepared foods.which I don't completely belive since there's just way little proof

 

[ritter6788]

They are ora and are suposidly raised on prepared foods.which I don't completely belive since there's just way little proof

I don't believe it either.

Still, if you do manage to get one eating frozen or pellets they still need to be fed constantly. People have bee training mandarins to eat mysis, pellets and bloodworms for years but they still get thin and starve if there aren't enough pods in the tank.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

With the way mandarins metabolize food, I would never say that they are 100% converted to frozen. These guys spend most of their day eating. They thrive off of eating copepods. The ability to eat frozen makes them a little more sustainable in our tanks.

 

[budissy24]

Hey I have two spotted gobys also and they would not eat, until I tryed one trick that has worked for me. You are going to have to get live brine shrimp fromm lfs or online, they will eat the live food, for a week feed them live brine shrimp, then add 25% frozen spirulina brine shimp ,to the live brine ad feed with frozen and live food, then next week do 50 50, and then 75% after 3 weeks all they ate was the frozen and still love it

 

[Thizz]

I got the male eating frozen and pellets.
He's constantly grazing on pods now and i feel like a big weight was lifted off of me knowing that he most likely will be with me for a while.
Female has not ate anything yet.

I setup a feeding station with a little gerber jar.male goes there when he sees the mysis fly in there

He's eating pellets but I'm going to hold off on those for about a month.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

That's awesome the male is coming around!!!

 

[jonbar1]

I'd be hatching baby brine shrimp to get them interested and adding frozen cyclop-eeze to the spot they are picking at with the baby brine shrimp. I'd also look into raising your own pods to suppliment what they can find in the tank.

 

[Thizz]

Female still won't eat

 

[Thizz]

Not even ova