Mandarin

When I had a mandrin after the lights went off he would take advantage of no fish swimming at the time he would swim at the top of the tank

 

i have a mandarin myself in a tank a little bigger than yours (29 gaL) what should do if you really want to keep one is build a refugium but mines not even doen and i have had mine for a month and he eats like a pig. just go to your LFS buy some macro algea find a safe place for you to put the macro algea in buy a thing or two of copepods and pour them into the tank. theyll move over to the macro algea and repopulate. thats what hapened to me, also dotn listen to that mumbo jumbo about they need a lot of live rock ive got like 8lbs and its fine+ everything else in my tank eats the copepods so obviously threes nothing rong with it.

 

Well I may have jumped the gun. he looked to be ok this morning. Maybe he was just chillin at the top. I had to run off to work so won't be able to keep an eye on him. Also My garlic question was not why but what do you use for garlic? Like chopped up fresh garlic or garlic flakes? can you buy fish garlic?

 

idk the only food i have is omega one fish flakes and theyre garlic enriched i got them fo rmy longnose butterfly and they worked i also have fed scooter blennys and madarins in the past with them so try those out

 

I hope the mandarin does okay! You can use just plain old garlic juice from the grocery store - soak the food in it for a few minutes. It really stinks, I will say that! Nothing like fish food mixed with garlic...

 

Def the more LR the better off you will be keeping a mandarin. If you are adding pods and the mandarin is eating brine shrimp then you should be alright assuming water quality is good. Mine occasionally will swim up the glass. If you are looking for something else to feed the mandarin mine loves bloodworms. So maybe you could try that. Good Luck

 

I have Mandarin and feed it Tigerpods every other month. My guy is pretty fat. Does yours mandarin look fat. A fat mandarin is a health mandarin. The more food you put in the tank the more natural copepods will come. I have no refugium or sump either and have had mine in my 46 for a year and a half.

 

Yah I use the tigerpods as well. They are expensive. 20 bucks per bottle. I dose the tank once per month. He is not as fat as he should be. thanks for the suggestions everyone. i am going to try the blood works and garlic see what happens.

 

mumbo jumbo?? Six months is about the point where most mandarins usually die from starvation. They need ALOT of live rock and ALOT of pods. Mandarins usually eat about every 5 seconds so go ahead and grab your calculator and add that up. I tried two of them when I had my 55 gallon with both of them dying due to starvation. (very established tank with fuge and added tigger pods)

 

I have a mandarin that seems to prefer bloodworms...and I do use garlic...