Feeding success ORA aquacultured mandarin

[garnet13aj]

Hi,
I just saw that swf is selling ORA aquacultured mandarins and that they should eat frozen food without a problem. Any comments on this from someone who has one. I've wanted a mandarin for a long time and would love to get one that didn't rely solely on copepods.
Thanks!

 

[gemmy]

I had one, but my sebae anemone ate it. The ORA mandarins can be very shy and get startled easily.

 

[garnet13aj]

Any other comments on their feeding success or general behavior? Do they seem to become less skiddish/shy with time?

 

[btldreef]

They do eat frozen from day one. It seems that the hunting instinct has basically been bred out of them. With that, they seem to be more lazy than your regular "wild" mandarin. The ORA ones, or captive and eating frozen at a young age ones (because ORA are NOT the only ones doing this, there's a man in the TriState who's got them as well, and I've had two from him), just seem lazy. They don't swim around as much... They are definitely easier to care about because the, "Oh my god, do I have enough copepods," panic isn't there. That being said, I still think there should be copepods available for them.