Help me & my Manderin

I bought a manderin goby a week ago today. At the start, my other fish were territorial and after a day things came back to normal. The Manderin has been shy and hasnt eaten at all and became very thin. I feed in rotation mysis, flakes, live brine, pellets. He just wont eat ...from the initial shock perhaps. I dont have a way to segregate him. My parameters are right on. What can I do?

 

Most mandarins initially will only eat live copepods. If you didn't have a large population already, you'll need to buy some live pods.

 

Not to be rude, but I take it you did not research this fish much?
Mandarins will pretty much never eat prepared foods. They feed exclusively on pods. They need larger tanks with lots of rockwork and attached populated fuges.
If the mandarin is already thin it is probably a goner. It's next to impossible to bring them back from that.

 

No I did not do my research. Ive had a few species of goby ...I know they eat pods, but I didnt know this one was exclusive to pods ...of which I have thousands, btw.

 

A mandarin is not a goby. It's a dragonette. They goby connotation is a common mistake.

 

i stand corrected ...his label said otherwise. At any rate .....anything else?

 

Hopefully now that things have calmed down, he'll start eating again. If you have pods and nothing is picking on him, all you can do is wait and hope.

 

Ill wait and hope =) I always have a good population of pods ....Ill add more tomorrow. Any suggestions on what company/ brand is best?

 

Do you know if he/she eats any prepared foods? I made the LFS show me. I target feed mine with a syringe. I use mysis to supplement her pod diet. They eat a lot of pods. My mandarin eats 15-20 frozen mysis a day. It's a lot of work to feed them like this and getting them to eat frozen is as hard as the dedication. I'm no expert but my Mandarin was emaciated when I got her, and her stomach area is filling in finally. Takes a while.

 

Dr. G's Aquaculture. I ordered live Phyto and rotifers from him. His pods are good,too. He ships for free also!