How long have you had him? If it has only been a few days / weeks, I have noticed they will do this during the day if the light cycle is not what they are used to. It seems to really throw them off, but he should be fine.
My 50g reef at home has been running for 17 months. I was thinking about adding a Mandarin. I haven't yet because I wasn't sure there were enough pods for it to eat. On the upper side panels of my tank I see a bunch of things moving around. They're not huge and their body has sort of a figure 8 appearance. What could they be? Would the mandarin eat them? I have a yellow watchman goby and a 6 line wrasse. If I added the mandarin, will it be competing for food with the watchman and the wrasse? Will it get along with those two fish?
The watchman and especially the 6-line will directly compete with the mandrin for food. If you have all those critters in your tank and the six line isn't eating them, then I'd guess the mandrin will not eat them too....
You sure could try, but you've got the minimum sized tank recommend for one and it'll be in a serious competition for food....If you do give it a try, I'd go the extra mile and get a mandrin that will eat frozen shrimp. Some of them really do!! go to your LFS and ask them if the mandrin is eating....if they tell you yes, then make them show you. If it doesn't eat, you don't buy it. And don't believe them when they say "Gosh...he must not be hungry...after all, we just fed him an hour ago"
But I may just be paranoid...there's not many LFS that would do that right?
__________________
I was planning on procrastinating today, but I'll do it tomorrow.
In my experience with Mandarins, the smaller the mandarin, the better the chance you can train it to eat processed foods.
The psychology behind this is that an adult (large) mandarin has spent the majority of it's life eating sea bugs, whereas the smaller ones are not yet 'locked in' to eating that as their only food.
I got my (recently deceased) Psychedelic Mandarin when it was about 1-1/2" long, and it didn't take it long at all to begin eating the food I was adding to the tank... I find that they prefer 'meaty' foods, like shrimp, etc.
Unfortunately, my mandarin died about two weeks ago, due to some sort of infection in his gill... he was a great little guy though, and was one of the fattest fish in my tank, because he'd get all the food that had settled out on the bottom.
This is however no 'guarantee' that any fish you get will start eating what you feed it... you just have a better chance if they're smaller.
My 75 gallon tank is about 10 months old and I see plenty of pods in the rock. I recently added a mandrin (about 2 weeks ago), and I did lots of research before I did so. My only question is: If I know there are pods in there to eat, will he be eating them? I am very paranoid, because of everything I have read, that I am starving my fish, and that is the last thing I want to do. I have actually hand fed him some frozen shrimp a couple of times, but I am not really sure if his behavior is normal or if he is hungry. Any ideas or comments would be great!
Manadarin's will eat constantly all the time day and night. They will consatantly search for pods etc. It is a good thing that your takes to prepared foods in case the pod population decreases.
I have a mandarin and i got it after i had my tank going for two months. Everyone said I was crazy because I didn't have a mature tank, but it is doing great and loves the supplemental food I give it(frozen brine shrimp) as well as eating the pods from the live sand bed and the plenty of live rock i have.
When I feed it the brine shrimp, I physically see it eat it and I see it pick off the live rock. The copepods population in my tank has gone down which leads to me to believe that something is eating them and the mandarin is the prime hunter in my tank.
Yeah, when I hand feed him shrimp I see him eat, but that has only happened twice. I have never seen him eat off the live rock, so that is why I am worried about him
75Gal, 6X96w PC, Turboflotor 1000 multi, 2 X 15Gal sumps (Mostly DIY) ---Blue Tang, Flame Hawk, Maroon Clown, Unknown Eel, 12" Carpet Anemone, Pencil Urchen*** <-|-> 29Gal Eclipse - gone <-|-> NEW 120 Reef, Born 3-26-2005, 3"DSB with 1845 GPH waterflow.
Linear Mode
