manderin goby feeding

[nicknacs]

I know they need a well established tank and eat pods but how much do they eat? The tank is well established (5years give or take) but I have only had it about 5 months myself. I bought the fish about 2 weeks ago. And bought a bottle of live pods to add to the tank. According to the LFS guy after I added that they will breed on their own and I would only need to add one once a year to keep the population up. It was a pretty good size bottle, about the size of a coke can. But I want to make sure he don't run out of food. He comes out at feeding time and catches the frozen I feed the rest of the tank but spits it back out.
Because he was listed as a "psychedelic goby" on the tank at the store the kids named him Austin Powers lol

 

[snakeblitz33]

If he refuses to eat frozen foods, then you may have to set up a refugium where you keep adding those pods to the water every 3 months or so until they really start to become established...
You could try the olive oil bottle trick...
http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

 

[nicknacs]

There are pods everywhere now. The only other one that eats them in there is a 6 line wrasse. So 25$ every 3 months or so seems pretty cheap for fish food. I am going to try the pellets but all my fish are that small so the jar would be useless.

 

[nicknacs]

I tried the pellets, the clowns ate them. But the manderin spit it out and stared at me threw the glass giving me the evil eye like I insulted it or something lol

 

[snakeblitz33]

lol
was the mandarin disturbed by the clowns while it was eating? If it was - then you may want to try the glass bottle trick.

 

[nicknacs]

No they were on the other side of the tank . He dose the same thing with the frozen food. Catches it and spits it out.

 

[geridoc]

I have tried the bottle trick on my mandarin, and found that I had invented the perfect hermit crab trap instead. I have been successful with feeding frozen prawn eggs with a pipette by putting them on the bottom of the tank near the fish (all pumps off). The fish is now taking some of the brine shrimp that I have begun to mix with the roe, and I hope eventually he will get the idea that he can chase the stuff in the water column, but so far he seems happy to eat from the small pile of food I ;lace in the tank (he does a good job of climbing over the hermit crabs, although the starfish has learned to move the fish aside sometimes).