aquacultured spotted mandarian

 

Well unfortunately, if its only copepods he eats, you are going to have to supplement it with them, by purchasing them. 10g fish tanks by no means will offer them enough with out your supplementation for them. 

 

I've heard this more than a few times, actually.

 

IME with mandies is they LOVE live black worms (be careful and feed a little at a time because they die quickly in SW).  They'll also eat enriched live Artemia.

 

What you need to do is get the fish fattened-up some (they lose weight quickly), and then try re-weaning it onto frozen.  The best way to do it is thaw some mysis in a little SW, rinse it in a net, put it into a little more SW (this makes it sink easier).  Then you get a piece of rigid 1" UGF thinwall tubing long enuff to reach the tank bottom, then slowly pour the mysis into a little pile on the substrate.  Add a few live treats right in that spot (worms are great for this), and hopefully the mandy will eat some mysis too.  Once they do this a few times, they'll recognize the mysis as food (if all goes as planned).

 

HTH

I think a 10G tank, even for a mandarin that is supposed to eat frozen is a really poor choice. Watch the yellow watchman goby too, they can be aggressive to mandarins, especially in smaller tanks.
ORA claims that when they're first moved, they may stop eating frozen due to stress. yours may have never gotten over the shipping stress by being placed in a smaller tank. Try some of the methods that Saxman suggested. To help convert them to frozen, I've turned off all the flow when offering food, which also seemed to help.

YIKES...I agree with TommieLynn...a 10 gal isn't a good permanent choice at all.  I thought we were talking 10 gal QT here.  A 10 gal is NOT a good place to keep a mandy, regardless of what it eats.  Even the specimens that do eat prepared foods spend all day browsing the rockwork for snacks, and IMHO, a 10 gal just can't support even a "casual" browsing fish.

 

FWIW, we kept our mandy for 8 years in a well-established 55 gal reef setting and our specimen ate everything we put into the tank, but IMO, even that setup was a little sketchy (small) in terms of snacking potential.

I kept mine in a 58 breeder and all day long he would browse the rock work and pick. I got a female awhile after that and they would swim the whole tank picking at rocks together. The were both weaned to mysis and newly hatched brine shrimp. great additions but I do agree a 10 just does not offer the grazing room they need.

 

IMO
Mike