Anyone feed their mandarin smelt roe?

[tiberius]

Hello Reefers!
I just read on another site that someone feeds their mandarin roe which are the orange balls on sushi rolls. Wanted to know if anyone did it here.

 

[mudplayerx]

I believe a very small portion of mandarins will take prepared food, but most will not and will starve if not supplied with an abundance of healthy, established live rock.
I don't know much about sushi, but I would definately refrain from feeding any already prepared human dishes to your marine livestock. Raw, unpreserved, unprepared seafood is the only thing you should use.

 

[shrimpi]

Is it completely raw? If it is I dont see why not?
Have you tried it yet? Im curious about this because my mandarin does eat frozen foods but he mostly likes bloodworms which is controversal but, Im not sure if it has something to do with the color because in the water a bloodworm looks about the same as a mysis or krill. Mine will sometimes go for mysis or brine but go crazy over bloodworms, and of course is a frantic pod hunter.
Please reply with whether or not you have tried to feed yours with these 'red balls'. Where do you get them from? Do they come in red balls? or do you have to prepare them that way. :notsure:

:notsure:

 

[tiberius]

Originally Posted by Shrimpi
Is it completely raw? If it is I dont see why not?
Have you tried it yet? Im curious about this because my mandarin does eat frozen foods but he mostly likes bloodworms which is controversal but, Im not sure if it has something to do with the color because in the water a bloodworm looks about the same as a mysis or krill. Mine will sometimes go for mysis or brine but go crazy over bloodworms, and of course is a frantic pod hunter.
Please reply with whether or not you have tried to feed yours with these 'red balls'. Where do you get them from? Do they come in red balls? or do you have to prepare them that way. :notsure:

:notsure:
I was going to go to an Asian grocery store and buy them. I haven't tried it. I am getting pods in the mail tomorrow and will start culturing these also. Mine is a male and he won't eat anything that I have put in the tank. He actually took an Artic pod in his mouth and spit it out!! The Artic pods are dead and they sell them at my LFS.
They are smelt roe and are orange.
Is yours a male mandarin? If so, what frozen foods will he eat?
***)

 

[shrimpi]

Mine is an adult male mandarin. He is about 3-4". I got him in march of this year. At first he would only eat pods so I tried to offer him live brine. He was not interested at all in the live brine - this worried me as most mandarins start off eating live brine if they are going to eat ANY prepared foods. So I tried mysis/frozen brine, he ate a mysis and spit it out(like yours did with the arctic pods). Then i picked up some bloodworms and made a mixture of mysis and bloodworms. I stopped trying the brine b/c he wouldnt eat them and they have no nutritional value anyway. He went nutzo after the bloodworms. Now every so often he will eat a mysis when its mixed with the b.worms. I soak the mysis/worms overnight(usually- or at least a few hours) in zoe so they can soak up some nutrition. Im not sure if he just likes the color of the worms or what because when they are floating in the water, the worms and the dead mysis look almost identical except for color.
Im going to find some of this smelt stuff you are talking about and try it. Have you had any luck with any of this? Mine still perfers to hunt for pods all day, but at least I have something to supplement his diet with and give him extra protein. So many of these guys starve.

kinda bad pic but heres my little guy hunting in a cave

 

[shrimpi]

oh yeah, he also gets real excited when I put the seaquirt in the tank (giant turkey baster) he comes right up to it and flares his top fin up. Its cute. He pretty much stays all 'puffed' up and pretty looking all through feeding time.

 

[tiberius]

Originally Posted by Shrimpi
Mine is an adult male mandarin. He is about 3-4". I got him in march of this year. At first he would only eat pods so I tried to offer him live brine. He was not interested at all in the live brine - this worried me as most mandarins start off eating live brine if they are going to eat ANY prepared foods. So I tried mysis/frozen brine, he ate a mysis and spit it out(like yours did with the arctic pods). Then i picked up some bloodworms and made a mixture of mysis and bloodworms. I stopped trying the brine b/c he wouldnt eat them and they have no nutritional value anyway. He went nutzo after the bloodworms. Now every so often he will eat a mysis when its mixed with the b.worms. I soak the mysis/worms overnight(usually- or at least a few hours) in zoe so they can soak up some nutrition. Im not sure if he just likes the color of the worms or what because when they are floating in the water, the worms and the dead mysis look almost identical except for color.
Im going to find some of this smelt stuff you are talking about and try it. Have you had any luck with any of this? Mine still perfers to hunt for pods all day, but at least I have something to supplement his diet with and give him extra protein. So many of these guys starve.

kinda bad pic but heres my little guy hunting in a cave
I thought we weren't supposed to give SWF fresh water foods. Well I just searched bloodworms and found your post. I don't think I will be trying them. Someone mentioned about running an airline tube down the back side of the tank and have it go under the gravel and come up an inch. Take the other end and stick it in the water and fill it up then shoot food down the tube when the mandarin comes by. I was going to do this for that smelt roe. But, I have been getting responses about trading my mushrooms for pods and didn't do it. Then all the trades fell through and I just went an ordered pods from a supplier. I have a gallon tank that I will set up and culture 1 bag of the pods. The company just told me to feed them meaty foods. I just did a water change Monday and vacuumed the bed and found lots of baby pods. So I think the Cyclopeeze that I have been feeding the tank daily has been helping. Here is my guy. Oh and mine did eat live brine but I stopped giving it to him since he seemed to be developing this twitching when he would try to eat a shrimp plus they provide nothing. You are lucky that he didn't spit out the mysis.

 

[tiberius]

Originally Posted by Shrimpi
oh yeah, he also gets real excited when I put the seaquirt in the tank (giant turkey baster) he comes right up to it and flares his top fin up. Its cute. He pretty much stays all 'puffed' up and pretty looking all through feeding time.
He didn't seem to mind the net which carried the brine. I held the turkey baster to him also and he didn't swim off. I filled the turkey baster with the pods I found when I did my water change a month ago and he didn't even go after any of them. I am thinking that he only likes the little ones. Nice and tender!

 

[reefkprz]

the airline tube trick works with flying fish roe. and my mandarine eats it. he wont touch any other non live food except the roe, I have not tried smelt roe, but the flying fish roe works good.

 

[shrimpi]

Yeah I opened a thread about the bloodworms a recent while back. I am trying to get him to eat more mysis, and he is slowing getting there. As I said, at this point, it is at least some form of supplemental protein, but I am NOT counting on this for a long term solution at all. I am going to try your airline tube trick. Is that your little guy? too cute! Being that mine is the only fish in the tank (except the goby) he doesnt really get scared of anything, he even lets the cleaner 'clean' him daily- that just started recently.