trying something new to feed the mandarin

I hatched a bunch of live brine shrimp to feed my new mandarin fish who is in a bare tank right now (I want to teach him to eat prepared foods). I watched him for a while, but am not sure he ate any. He is always scanning the glass of the aquarium for things, and pecking at the glass which is mostly bare at this point.

This led me to an idea, and I wonder what people think of it. If I could somehow take a sheet of acrylic, apply some sort of adhesive to it and then dust on some cyclop-eeze (which, after all, is a form of pods), and then stand it up vertically in his tank, I wonder if he would be more interested in eating it. After all, he likes to roam up and down pecking at the glass walls, so why not make him a wall of food? My only question is what to use as adhesive to stick the cyclop-eeze to the acrylic. It would have to be something sticky enough to hold, but easy to remove and clean later. Any ideas? Has anyone tried this before?

 

I've fattened two Mandarins on a diet of orange flying fish row (the sushi eggs on a california roll) and also on "Ocean Nutrition Marine Formula 1 Small Pellets". My MDs will gobble both these foods up the moment I drop them in my tank. I also have a good population of pods and on occasion I've seen an MD eat a bristleworm. I get my fish roe, refrigerated, at an Asian market and ensure it doesn't have vinegar or additives in it.

 

I might try the fish roe. So far he has turned down live brine, frozen mysis, and frozen rotifers. I may try the roe, but it just seems to me that he wants to find his food on the walls, not the floor. So I want to try to stick the food to a vertical wall.

 

are you shutting powerheads off when feeding. Mine would never look twice at a piece of brine whizzing by him. I fed the other fish flakes before shutting off the powerheads. Then shutoff powerheads, and spray live brine near him. He goes nuts! I have also been able to get him to eat frozen brine with the same method. If your worried about pods, start a few big pod piles behind rocks. Just take a bunch of coral rock rubble and make piles. Once I started doing this they became infested within days of making the piles. My mandarin sleeps next to the biggest pod pile in my tank. The main thing with mandarins is you can't try just one thing, then disregard it from the list because he won't eat it. Keep trying the same foods over and over and soon enough he will realize its food. Shut off the powerheads too! I have been able to get mine to eat brine and mysis so far. Still won't touch fish eggs but I'm still trying.

 

I have to drop the pellets or roe in one side of the tank to distract hermits and other fish and then drop some right on top of the MD. The brine shrimp have no nutrition so its good to let the shrimp soak for a day in Selcon.

 

YES I also turn powerheads off during feeding and it helps. Also, Its important to understand that some fish will decimate your pods --like Damsels and wrasses.

 

These are all good suggestions, which I appreciate. But my question remains whether anyone has tried the frozen pods (cyclop-eeze) on a vertical wall. I will try it tonight and let you know how/if it works out.