Well I have a 100 gal with about 200lbs of rock so it was already getting plenty to eat. When I first got this mandarin It was a little skinny, his belly was a little sucked in. I had my tank up and running only for a few months so I know my systems was providing adequate food at the time. So when I bought this lil guy and brought him home, I put him into a qt tank full of chaetomorpha and rock rubble that I recieved from another reefers refugium. Little at a time I would add live brine into the tank and he readily ate them which was a plus for me. Slowly I mixed frozen brine along with live and he took to the frozen as well. Then again I slowly mixed in frozen mysis along with the live brine. This took awhile as he didnt show any interest in these for awhile. I then added ocean nutrition pellets just to see if it would even try them and to my surprise he eventually did. This was a long process taking over 6 months to accomplish. Once he started regularly eating the frozen I moved him into my dt and he had trouble finding food as my other fish would gobble every morsel befor he even knew I had fed the tank.(sorry this is so long and for hi jacking your thread) I read an article by melevsreef and what he did was placed a small clear container, like an olive jar, with the food inside. The opening had to be small enough to keep other fish out and obviously big enough for the mandarin to fit inside. This took a few days as he had trouble with the other fish scaring him away and finding the entrance to I placed the entrance near the rocks and he eventually figured it out. This process took very long and I was very devastated to see him get eatin by the carpet. His death was my fault...I really regret getting that thing and I ended up giving it away to another hobbyist that wanted it.