Spotted vs Red, Green, Blue Mandarin

I voted "normal mandarin eating live or prepared food yes"

BTW, the two main different ones are more commonly called 'psychedelic' or 'target' mandarin.

Mine is a psychedelic mandarin. It will sometimes eat frozen food, but it mostly picks at pods on the rocks all day long. I'm not sure it would survive if it didn't have its pods.

 

in that thread people explain why there mandarin eat prepared food or not based on everything ive heard so far you have well over a 60% chance of being able to ween a mandarin onto prepared foods it just takes the right techniques. My biggest support isnt the last pole it is Roger Williams University with tons of tanks which they have succsefully converted 80 to 90 % of there mandarins onto prepared foods at all different stages of life

 

+1 on blackraven above

22 votes , and naturally only people with positive experience responded

many people purchase Mandarins, dont have the pod population to support them, cant get them to eat prepared or frozen alternatives and they waste away and die

but if you happen to have that experience, you dont want to post about it on a forum IMHO

Steve

 

I'd say if you are an experienced aquarium hobbyist, have done your research, and you think you can do it, then go for it. But, get an ORA tank raised one... in the chance you fail, at least you're not depleting wild populations.

 

o and also l talked to the people at Roger Williams University about where they get there mandarins and they said Liveaquaria they also said that its a good place to buy them because before you purchase them the people there start to try to ween them onto frozen foods so if your gunna buy a mandarin go with either livequaria or ORA like suggested above

 

Drew, it is very unlikely to get one onto frozen. In the size of a tank larger than 30g they will not be interested in anything other than their own word.
I have had success in training a few fish onto all types of prepared food by keeping them in my fuge for a while to train them. Using this method I have successfully trained two little baby clowns onto everything (that was easy though), a yellow clown goby onto almost everything, and am in the process of training a baby pipefish to readily accept cyclopeeze.

training is not easy by any means at all but if you are diligent about it, use the correct procedure, and the fish is willing to accept... you will have a very small chance of succeeding.

 

Mine only eats live copepods nothing prepaired will he touch

 

Your best bet would be to buy one already eating prepared foods. Diver's Den puts them up occasionally, and sometimes a LFS will have them. I bought two scooter dragonettes from Diver's Den that were eating frozen brine. I've gotten them onto mysis now - and it was easy because they were already loving frozen brine. They know when it's feeding time and perch like baby birds on the rocks waiting for me to squirt food into their mouths.

However, even if the fish is eating prepared foods, it also needs a supply of pods because they hunt all day long eating little crustaceans. They can starve to death even when on prepared foods because they aren't getting the proper nutrients that they need from their natural diet.

 

keep answering poll guys

 

Well i trained my mandarin in my 55gal tank to eat just about everything hes a garbage dump now. I bought him for an LFS that has no clue on fish but i told them to feed the tank and they fed a frozen mix and while he was in the tank he was hunting but nothing to eat. When the frozen hit the water he was curious and pecked at it. So i bought him and brought him home. He was like a fat kid in a candy shop when he went into my tank. Pods galore so i let him hunt but the next day i fed frozen and sprayed some in were he was chilling. He came out and took some mysis and blood worms. I think he realized it was yummy so i fed him twice a day a small amount of that. Then i mixed some pellet with selcon and the blood worms and he eat that. So then finally i through flake in and a piece fell near him and he just downed it. Sure he constantly hunting but hes very fat and happy. You can get a mandarin to eat prepare foods just have to find that special willing one to do it with. As a side note he is now eating Hpd as well so yea it can happen.