mandarin question

[m-barbour]

I bought a somewhat starving mandarin that was believed to be a female about 4 months ago after doing a lot of research on them. I put her in a little tiny hermit crab type of cage to teach him to eat frozen foods and got her on nutra mar ova, frozen brine and mysis. She's fattened up quite a bit to where you can only seee a very slight sucked it stomach but much better then when I found her. When I bought her and she would show her top dorsal fin it was just a little stub maybe a cm loong or so but now that she's fatter and happy it is maybe a half inch long. The mandarin itself is about 3 inches. Think it may be a he? I've read the fin can be damaged and grow back giving the false thought of a female. What do you guys think

 

[deejeff442]

even though she is eating frozen food she will still die eventually of malnutrition.they need the fat produced by pods to stay healthy.
think of it this way,we can survive on pepsi and potato chips and get fat on them but eventually we will have serious health problems.it takes a mandarin 6 months to a year to die of malnutrition.i would buy a bottle of pods from the lfs and supplement with that along with the food she is eating.

 

[m-barbour]

Yes thank you..I just put her in the little cage for a day to train her/him..she's now happy in a 75g hunting for pods all day with the added benefit of eating brine and whatever else floats by

 

[deejeff442]

too cool.i have a 250 reef with 40 lbs of rock rubble in my sump.i have a ton of pods .i want to get a mandarin.a red one but they are hard to find.i will get one sooner or later.
a pic would be nice.i never get tired of looking at them.

 

[m-barbour]

Yea u should they're great to watch..with a 250 you could get a male and a female to have follow eachother if you could get them along which isn't guaranteed but would be a very nice addition..ill work on the pics

 

[deejeff442]

i had one years ago i had him for a couple years and then one day i found him all white color dead and the hermits were eating him.i dont know what he died from?but i always wanted another and have seen the red one not the green and havnt found one yet.i might just get the green one soon.