Quote:
Originally Posted by actinic
Best way to stock on a budget is to find a local aquarium club and get frags. They maybe small at first but will grow quickly on a well maintained and fed system  .
Mandarins can be tricky, even ORA captive bred ones, IME. If you are getting them from a store, make sure that they are actually keeping the regimen of feeding prepared diets and look for full bellies..."TIP"...look from the underside.
Get as large as you can. In a system as small as yours, they will decimate the "pod" population. Although the ORA are fed w/commercially prepared foods (chopped PE Mysis, frozen Cylcopeze, New Life Spectrum Grow 0.5mm pellets, Golden Pearls 800-1000micron) it's best that you get a little breeding trap and reinforce training to commercial foods and hand feeding w/a pipette/eyedropper.
To get it feeding on the dry foods, soak it with thawing frozen food so the liquid portion (and scent) in absorbed by the flake/pellet. Then over time once it's accepting the soaked food, add unsoaked food and reduce the amount of soaked. Once you notice that it feeds w/o issues, then release into the main display.
Yeah, it's a bit of work but well worth it to keep these little jems. I haven seen this color variant in 10 years, but there were orange/peach faced mandarins. |
Thanks for the advice, although it was kind of a 'word to the wise' as they would say.
I've been a member of our local club for years and the Mandarin feeding thing has been worked out. I'm currently retraining him to eat out of a jar but other than that he's doing well. His slow ass never seems to get all his food before the hermits do. Luckily, it's a small display and he knows which corner to go to. I even think he's learned how to beg.