Mandarin Starving...what to do?

That is an amazing story that gives me much hope. What kind of feeding tube are you talking about? airline tubing connected to a turkey baster?

 

It works.. put their favorite food in there to start. It also helps you not pollute the tank so much! After they start knowing this is where there food comes from.. start mixing the food with another type. Good luck!

 

check your LFS for a bag of live pods mine sells them for 10$ a bag then do what LCP136 sed and poot a rubble pile in the corner of the tank. i had my sand sifting goby starve to death i think i havent seen him and he ate all my algae in the tank i tryed to feed him everything and he only wanted to eat sand :-( R.I.P sand goby

 

Get one from Riteaid. They are the plastic syringes used for giving babies liquid meds. Put some airline tubing on the end. Mix the food in a little cup with some tankwater. The Mandarin will see the food move through the clear tubing and it will attract his/her attention.

 

that is the spot on truth...with some stores. THere is a great place in Jensen, (aqualand aquariums) tons of mandarins, it is a specialty, all fat and eating multiple feedings of live bloodworms daily. Good protein makeup in bloodworms, that store is the best for fish, everyone healthy, in fact I have never seen a skinny or dead fish there. Lots of hands on work done there.

 

Small update....
I made some bigger taller rock rubble mounds. Also found a section of my sump that pools all the free swimming pods together. I can stick a turkey baster in and suck at least 100 at a time then spray them in the display. The mandarin beefed up slightly and I can see ALOT of pods crawling around in the rubble piles. Still no luck with any frozen foods but I will continue to try different methods and won't be giving up.

 

I use cyclopees a couple x-wk. My mandarin is fat. I dont know if he is fat because of eating cyclopees or not because I also prime tank and sump about twice a month w/pods.
But I do see him scurry about when I use the cyclopees, and usually he stays back in rock.

If you have cheto in sump full of pods, pick it up and shake it over container and pods will fall in it, put pods in tank, return cheto to sump.

Also 'Reef Nutrition' has tiger pods that might help. Artic pods also. very small but you can see them move.

 

How do you feed the cyclopeeze?

 

You cut a chunk off (of frozen) let it thaw and put it in the tank. If freezedried give it a little time in a container with tank wanter to rehydrate and feed as usual.

 

Do you leave your pumps on when you feed? I have not tried cyclopeeze yet