Captive Breed Mandarin not eating

[little_fish]

Sadly, unless you train them to eat frozen he is probably just going to start to death. If the tank established there might be enough pods for him to survive on.

Did you add him to tank or did he come with the tank? Also does the tank have a fuge?

 

[swiftwind]

He came with the tank and we're told the newest addition to the tank was 6months ago. I don't think there's a fuge although i don't know what one is. There's the main tank and two protein skimmers off the back and that's it. It certainly looks like he's nibbling at something on the rocks cause he's always swimming around picking at them. Is there a way to tell if there's enough pods in a tank to be sustainable? Or how would I go about getting them to that point?

 

[wontonflip]

If you kept the rocks and sand, then it's likely there are pods in there. You typically won't see pods as long as there are livestock that eat them. In my old 45g, I didn't think I had any pods, until I started moving my fish to the 125g...and all of a sudden, I had pods all over my glass. They were just hiding.

Fuge = Refugium -- It's basically a part of the tank (usually in the sump) that has a ball of Chaeto (algae) and that's where pods usually thrive. They eventually make their way in the main tank. But a mandarin not eating frozen foods are constantly hunting for pods.

 

[little_fish]

Well, i would hope with how long the tank has been set up it would be established enough to produce enough pods for him to live on. I would keep a very close eye on him and see if he is losing weight at all.

If you can, it might be worth it to catch him up and try and train him to eat frozen foods

 

[swiftwind]

It took us five days, over 8 hours and the eventually dissasembling and removal of half the rock in order to catch the six line wrasse that was in there so the lawnmower benny we added could come out of hiding from where the wrasse had cornered it. So I really hope we don't have to do that again any time soon. I will keep an eye on the dragonet and start looking for pods, and I suppose start reading about how to train a fish to eat frozen foods just in case.
Thanks for the correction.

 

[Wes888]

i think they would be fine not eating for a week...

That was 2 weeks ago. She still doesn't go around eating like the male does. I guess she is eating something while I'm not watching.

The male keep hunting for pods non-stop. Climbing all over the LR and picking stuff to eat while he is ignoring the other tons of pods on the glass.

 

[reeftanker84]

mandrines in the wild are nocturnal and she may be eating at night when more pods are out eating algae

 

[Wes888]

Here is another thing, the male change to a camouflage color after night out, while the female still in her bright color doing like what she usually do during the day. Look like she is blind.

 

[Wes888]

mandrines in the wild are nocturnal and she may be eating at night when more pods are out eating algae

You just got me thinking. My mandarins are captive breed. In the breeding/grow-out environment, there won't be any LR or pods in the system at all. In fact, the system always circulate with UV treated water to make sure it's sparkling clean. No bateria, algae, or pods would survive in the water column. They have to rely on the pellet feeding during the day. That's why the male I have is so active during the day and he just sit tight at night.

 

[little_fish]

Have you tried tempting them with sushi roe?

 

[Wes888]

I tried cylopee that all of my other fish went crazy for them, while these two don't even look at them. I still haven't tried sushi roe yet. When I get a chance to go to an Asian supermarket, I'll get some. I like to eat them myself anyway. :D