I got a Mandarin....now comes the anxiety

[nina&noah]

The mandarin was given to me on Saturday. My tank is 90 gallons and it is over two years old. I've seen the copepods so I know they are there, but I have a few questions....
1. How do I know it is eating/ getting enough to eat?
2. I saw it eat brine shrimp in the LFS. I've heard of gut loading brine shrimp, but I don't know how to do this. Can someone explain what I would "gut load" them with?
3. Do these things eat flat worms? I read somewhere else that they do. Not looking for it to do this, but any source of food would comfort me!
My plan is to try to train this fish to eat mysis. I want to spot feed it brine with a turkey baster so it gets used to being spot fed. Then I was going to switch it over to mysis. How does that plan sound? Please help!!! I tried to spot feed it mysis last night and it was not interested. I've heard of so many of these fish starving to death, and I don't want mine to be one of them.

 

[browniebuck]

If you watch the fish for a period of time, you will see it hover over a spot and sort of peck at the rock...this is when they catch a pod. One thing that I did with mine before my heater went berserk and cooked my first two fish (happened over a year ago and I'm still pissed!!!) was turn off the filter, power heads, etc... so that the food wouldn't be blown away from him when I fed my tank mysis, this allowed him to eat everything that he wanted...just make sure that you turn everything back on when you are finished.

 

[nina&noah]

Okay, he is doing the hovering pecking thing, so that is good. I read on some sites to try blood worms, so that is what I am going to spot feed tonight. Does anyone have any experience training this fish to eat?

 

[todj2002]

i thought they ate copepods.

 

[nina&noah]

Originally Posted by TODJ2002
http:///forum/post/3135957
i thought they ate copepods.

They do, but I've read several articles about people who have successfully trained them to except other foods. However, none of the articles said HOW they trained them. While I am confident that I have copepods now, I'm scared that my supply won't meet his demand later on down the road. I'm also a little paranoid and would like to see this fish eat so I know he is well nourished.

 

[meowzer]

I think to train them you have to put them in a seperate tank....
anyway, you have a 90G that is 2 years old...right....do you have a fuge?/
Just watch it....it should be plump.....if it starts to get skinny....well then you worry

 

[stickleback]

Trained mine to eat frozen mysis in a separate nano tank. I Kept the tank bottom bare of any substrate so you and the fish can see the mysis easily. Just kept swapping pices of live rock from my fuge to keep some pods in there. Turn off all pumps so the mysis settles on the bottom of the tank and watch. Just add small amounts at first and observe. Make sure you turn the pumps back on after though.