Mandarin Starving...what to do?

Another sad mandarin story. I purchased a mandarin about 7 months after setting up my 72gallon reef with a 20 gallon fuge. i have about 80lbs of old cured established rock from local reefers in my display, and 70lbs of established sand. I have no other pod eaters and there were pods EVERYWHERE and several different types. Well the poor girl is going on 4 months old. Haven't been able to interest her in any dry/frozen foods. Even tried the old ol mandarin diner.....she got stuck in the jar and now fears the glass dish. I'm pretty sure the only pods left in my display are amphipods, which appear to be too big for her. Every rock I remove, amphipods scatter, but this does not indicate that there is a major population copepods for her.

She is getting noticeable skinnier and skinnier...you can see both lateral lines and her stomach is tucked in a little. Shes not on her death bed yet but heading in that direction.

My fuge section (about 10gallons out of the 20gallons) is packed with pods. Every inch of caulerpa has pods crawling on them. As for macroalgae, I have chaeto, caulerpa and grape caulerpa in the sump with about 10lbs live rock and 15lbs of sand. I have been taking several porous rocks out of my display and leaving them in the sump for a few days and rotating them in and out of the display, but this doesn't seem to be enough. She'll pick at the rock for about 20minutes and eat everyone in sight. What I'm wondering is if I can temporarily pop her in the sump to have a pod feast and hopefully fatten her up a little. Have others done this? I don't want her to die knowing that I could help her by doing this. I am also going to start taking jugs of water from my fuge and pouring it into my display with the hopes of catching free swimming copepods in the water. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

I would try to modify the fuge in such a way that it is easier for pods to get sucked up into the DT. I think you could absolutely put the mandarin in the sump for a small period of time, a day or two, but it might quickly deplete the fuge. My suggestion would be to order some pods online, from livecopepods.com or another vendor and seed the display tank with it. On top of that I would add a pile of live rock rubble somewhere in the tank for pods to have a safe haven in the DT to reproduce.

Also, have you tried feeding cyclop-eeze? Some people from my understanding have sparked some interest with mandarins from this food.

 

haha...i know. I let the wife refer to it as a girl, because that is what she wanted. Now the cats out of the bag. Thanks for the move missionsix

 

If your LFS sells pods you can add those weekly or bi weekly, my lfs sells a nice large thing of pods for 8 bucks

 

I was just concerned about stressing her out because she will have to be netted and brought down to the sump.

I've rigged my display with several large rubble piles. I have read almost all mandarin forums before going and had my tank setup from day one to accomodate pod births because I knew I would eventually want one. I even have a corner of chaeto that I swap out weekly from the sump to the display, which seems to interest her but it has not affected her sickly appearance.

No I have not tried cyclopeeze....anyone else have luck with mandarins and this stuff? I'll pick some up but I'm tellin ya she won't touch anything that isn't scurrying across a rock. I'll check around my LFS again to see if they got some new varieties, last time I looked for some (before I got my mandarin), the only place that had them was a fish store that I do not care for and they were charging 30 bucks for 100.

 

I went through this a while ago myself. Unfortunately theres not much you can do if he wont eat frozen foods. I myself started putting mine in the fuge for a small time aday but that just depleted the pods in the fuge( because there already at the point of starvin they will eat all the pods in the fuge before the pods can reproduce more) and inevitably mine died of starvation. You could buy pods and start dumping them in the DT but that can get expensive.
well i hope you have better luck then i did.

 

Thanks....its crazy how a fish can be so cheap ($15-$20) and its food be twice as much as the fish costs. Thats life and thats why people are pushed away from buying fish like this. You pay for your mistakes. I'm going to try to do everything I can to keep her alive though. I'll start asking around for some live pods.

Maybe in 1000 years they will finally have some tank raised mandarins for us.

 

I wasn't assuming you hadn't done your research. Sounds like you have a setup as good as anyones for a mandarin. I think your best bet is to add pods frequently. You could try to set up your own copepod culture so it isn't so expensive.

 

I wish I had some advice for you as I have one of these that (not to rub it in) is doing great (had for almost 2 years now and a little fatty). I would hate to see mine wither away like that and I would be in the same boat looking for a solution QUICK.

My only suggestion is to get some more pods and hope for the best. Putting it into the fuge will prolong the fish from starving but will wipe out the fuge within a day or 2 IMO. I have heard others try cyclopees and have good results so it cant hurt to try that as well

K+ for the effort and good luck!!