Mandarin Training

Thanks

 

Instincts are a hard thing to break.... you may have better chances with live foods but to my knowledge mandarins are very selective with what they eat... Im not sure I understand your concern or why you want to train a mandarin to eat a different food source...Is your system small and immature?...... if your hoping to keep a mandarin long run by "training" it you're already starting off on the wrong foot imo....

honestly unless you have a super small system, if you let your tank mature and have the mandarin as the only real pod eating fish, your pod population should be able to keep up with the mandarins consumption....

 

I have a BC 29, and it's almost a year old. So I would call it small and immature, it's older than six months and I do have cheato and pods..... But I don't want little guy to starve. So it's not that in trying to get if off of pods, I'm just trying to get it to eat something else to help it out..... I do have pods..... But I believe he will wipe them out in time.. I have put tiger pods in are there better pods to put in?

 

where is the cheato?

 

you can always ask your LFS if their mandarins eat forzen and if they say yes ask them to prove it to you my feeding the fish..... otherwise with time they will hopefully eat different foods, again mine took 3 years.... but I think you should be able to house a mandarin easily if your tank is a year old...and if its the only pod decimater...

 

Well that's good to know that you think it can house one... And at the fish store it looked as if it ate a frozen brine, I asked to see it eat before I bought it. And my cheato is in the back chamber #2 of my all in one sump.

 

Need help!! What is wrong wih my male mandarin? He got real fat and now is just swollen looking all over from velly and eyes. Been eating fine and acting normal until last few days.

 

Looks female to me. Be careful using a flashlight as it is easy to blind fish with them. I am guessing it is ready to lay eggs.
I know you are new here but it is better to start your own thread so we don't hijack someone else's.

 

I highly disagree. Many have tried and failed to keep Mandarins in much larger tanks. This fish is highly efficient and will strip a 29 gallon tank of pods in short order. If you can afford to constantly replace them or grow your own you may have a chance but its alot of work.

 

Take vinnys word over mine, I have never kept a mandarin in a small system