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Mandarin training
- Thread starter Cdiggy
- Start date
I did this a few years ago, in 2009.
We had our mandarin in a small tank, 30g, and we fed pellets, mysids, cyclopseeze.
We tried Melev's mandarin diner, which our other small fish got into routinely. We fed a combination of live food and frozen food, and we kept our tank heavily stocked with pods to keep the fish from starving while she figured out that the prepared food was food. It took me several months, and then we bought a male, and he learned from her.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have not tried it again since we lost our mandarine pair when we moved in 2011 because I looked at how much $ I spent on pods I am hesitant to do it again (I'm OCD. I have a spreadsheet that tracks costs). If you want to know the #, PM me. Now that I culture pods, I know the number would be lower, but it would still be in the hundreds.
We had our mandarin in a small tank, 30g, and we fed pellets, mysids, cyclopseeze.
We tried Melev's mandarin diner, which our other small fish got into routinely. We fed a combination of live food and frozen food, and we kept our tank heavily stocked with pods to keep the fish from starving while she figured out that the prepared food was food. It took me several months, and then we bought a male, and he learned from her.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have not tried it again since we lost our mandarine pair when we moved in 2011 because I looked at how much $ I spent on pods I am hesitant to do it again (I'm OCD. I have a spreadsheet that tracks costs). If you want to know the #, PM me. Now that I culture pods, I know the number would be lower, but it would still be in the hundreds.
there are people who get them to eat frozen and prepared food without any pods.
there is a long topic on it on nano-reef: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/256327-the-many-methods-of-training-dragonets/
but apparently it can take a few months.
there is a long topic on it on nano-reef: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/256327-the-many-methods-of-training-dragonets/
but apparently it can take a few months.
It can. I tried that first and lost two fish to starvation. I will never do that again.
There's a guy that used to be a frequent poster here named Paul B. He came up with a pretty cool way to taget feed mandarins.
Check out the old thread: http://www.njreefers.org/showthread.php?75816-Feeding-Stations&p=682076&viewfull=1#post682076
Check out the old thread: http://www.njreefers.org/showthread.php?75816-Feeding-Stations&p=682076&viewfull=1#post682076
I have found it to be fairly easy to train a mandarin to eat frozen. Here is what I do: I stock the tank with pods 2-3 times before introducing the mandarin. For the first month, I allow the mandarin to adjust to the tank and do not try to target feed it. After about a month of reviewing the mandarins habits and where it likes to hang out at feeding time, I begin to use my turkey baster to squeeze the frozen mysis in the direction of the mandarin. The mandarin quickly learns to associate the turkey baster with food. Shortly the mandarin will begin to go to the turkey baster and feed directly from the turkey baster. I only feed frozen foods to my fish and this method has worked for me several times.