Mandarine in trouble

[beginnermatt]

I bought a mandarine on Christmas Eve. I did not realize they need at least 100# of LR. I think it is doomed. The LFS won't take it bake and it doesn't want live brine yet. It looks like it is hunting, but I may not have to many pods left. Any ideas on how I might save it?

 

[broncofish]

Any freinds with a fuge. You get the pods from them

 

[beginnermatt]

Wish I did.

 

[katara]

Just a suggestion;When you feed the live brine turn off your powerheads & any other thing that may be circulating your water.Mine is rather lazy and wont go out of his way to eat the brine but if it's relatively easy he'll eat it right up..Good luck.

 

[killafins]

I would agree with the person ahead of me... mandarine's are lazy in their own way. They do like to hunt for prey but they don't like to try too hard... try some frozen brown shrimp and wave it in front of him with a feeding tool; do'nt use fingers!!! Use big enough junks so it will see the food. Just make sure you don't make it chase you or it will give up! I would never recommend bying one, some salt water fish are just toooooo tough to handle and the mandarine's are on the top few.

 

[beginnermatt]

Thanks those are some good ideas. My mandarine just doesn't seem to care for brine.

 

[ekclark]

This may be a bit late but...buy a refuge if you can. I have 115#'s of lr and I began to worry about my mandarin so I added a refuge only a few weeks ago. The pods seem to really thrive in the thing, maybe the 24/7 lighting-but I have no idea. Anyway--you can really up your pods with one of these. I have the cpr hang on model with a clip on pc light. HTH

 

[reefaddicted]

i know where you can buy PODS online. I wish it was this site but it is not. Email me and I'll give it to you.

 

[attml]

Brine Shrimp via a Turkey Baster.

 

[chef jaysen]

Begginer matt I think you are goin to be ok. Just feed the fish shrimp brine plus. I have 25 pounds of live rock as well and the mandarin has been doin great for 3 months so far. The remnints of the brine shimp plus will speed up the pod population mine has exploded. good luck

 

[jmesmcm]

It will probably just fine if it is hunting some, particularly if you have live sand. I have a mandarin with about 60# of live rock live sand we never saw it eat for the first 4 months and then it suddenly started eating frozen mysis shrimp and now pods are running all over the live rock and the mandarine doesn't seem to hunt them preferring it seems to eat the mysis or whatever we feed the tank.

 

[wrassecal]

Are you hatching the baby brine yourself? The little tiny ones? If so, be sure to strain them before feeding the tank, can be lots of nitrates in the water. My mandarin won't eat the "larger" live brine that I can buy at the lfs, but we hatch our own, they look like a bunch of brown specs. Must feed them within 24 hours of when they are ready or they lose their nutrition. Very cheap to get a hatch kit. Then we turn off the filters and feed them to the tank. The mandarin goes to pecking away at the ones that land on the lr. We leave filter and skimmer off for a couple hours while all the fish eat. We leave our powerheads on, thinking that will swirl more of them onto the rocks. JME/HTH

 

[saltyrich]

Try this stuff. It is a mixture of rotifers and pods. http://www.roti-pods.com

 

[beefman]

Reefadict What is ur email I need to buy some pods or either that i just dont see them i have the Miracle mud setup that hangs on the back of the tank and it really really nice stuff Corals havnt looked so good. But either they are in the Miracle mud or they died off. I would like to get one of the False Mandarines sometime.

 

[broncofish]

Sand sifting star could be getting some of your pods? Try the redlight trick and see if you can see them.

 

[beefman]

Really would the sand sifter be eating my pods??? hmmm is it something i should look into trading some with my dad or could it be something else.

 

[broncofish]

It's quite possible, but there are different opinions on how many they eat? I don't have one so I do not know for sure.

 

[beefman]

ok lol i have only seen a couple pods in my tank but now i see mysis shrimp swimming in the dark cracks of rocks. Do u know if these are mysis shrimp or some other shrimp i have lots of them in the dark spots.

 

[reefaddicted]

Maybe they will leave this since they do not sell PODS here.
www.oceanrider.com it's a seahorse site and not really a direct competitor of SWF.

 

[beginnermatt]

I have the Mysis shrimp. I'm not sure how much to add to the tank.