Manderin Code Cracked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, i think my LFS guy and I may have done it. So far we have 8 out of 10 Manderins eating frozen food and believe it or not, even flake food. Its been a long time coming i suppose. It does take some time but results are showing and these little SOB's are FAT and HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!! Here is what we did.(for the last 6months)

We used 2 10gallon tanks, one loaded with pods other with live brine. they were literally crawling over each other to move around. 3x a day we would feed the tanks w/ flake food, emerald cuisine and life line frozen food(red/carnivorous). We had the manderins in the RLU(retail live stock units) in the back of the store. we fed them twice a day, a mixture of live brine and pods. We'd dump into a small 4 oz dixie cup the pods and brine. then proceeded to feed these fish we all so desire to keep. After 2wks of feeding them the brine and pods, we slowly started replacing w/ bits of flake, and other two frozen foods. we continued this pattern up till we no longer had to add live brine or pods. Its unfortunate we can't say this is 100% guarenteed to work as we did not get 2 of them to transistion they dodged everything but the live food. We are still working to see if we can figure it out or transition them. However the others, i have 2 now, one psychadelic and one red manderin happily in my tanks eating twice aday whatever i throw in the tank. He took one for his tank and the rest are up for sale at the store. as expected tho the he has raised the prices of them significantly usual 12-16$ you pay for the fish, they are now 35$ and advertised to eat frozen food, he also places a guarentee that they will eat and a 90day guarentee on the fish, provided water params are correct, aclimation was done properly, and no other fish were carrying any form of sickness to pass on, ie Ich. He unfortunately doesnt ship.... Yet, i am trying to work him into the process of doing so and this is how he's going to sell manderins from now on. He's bringing in 30 more in(next week) and we are going to do this all over again. We hope to be able to shorten the transistion process or figure out another method but till then. This is the best we got.

Not that it needs saying, but you better keep us updated on this project. We're all very excited!

Yeah i wanna get a mandarine for my tank

good example of how hobbiest can contribute to the science.

seanano, I am proud of people like yourself - those that make this hobby better for not only us, but the species in question.

Keep up the good work and keep us all posted. I know for a fact that i would love a mandarin, but because of sites like this I know better. Now, with your research, perhaps those that just impulse buy will actually be able to keep these mysterious fish alive.

Chris

I have something to add....WOOHOO thats totally awsome keep up the good work!

Nice!!

Im not sure if the "mandarin code" is cracked, sounds like you just put more effort into getting them weened onto flake food. Ive hear of people doing this before with some success, although more like 50/50 instead of 8/10. Sounds like you need dedicated tanks for this, something not all of us have.

Im not sure how many LFS would be willing to do this - they seem to sell mandarins pretty easily as it is. IMO, I would still recomend them only to people with lots of established LR, if only for the reason that the flake food adapted mandarins will still have a hard time competing with the other fish for food. Anyways, glad to hear you are getting good odds.

Thank you all for your apprecitation. granted it is a weening of sorts, but none the less its worked. and turned out well. What we are hoping to do is shorten the amount of "weening" time it takes. or to see if we can figure out a way to just load up the pods/brine on food and do a quick switch. I will continue to keep you all updated. And if my buddy at the fish store doesnt want to start shipping them. I will do it personally as a tribute to this site for all the information its given me, and to insure the survival of this species in home aquariums. I've read about the 50/50 reports, and i am glad to surpass them w/ what i think to be a good number. From here on out it should be quite interesting.

Edit: as far as competing w/ other fish. I personally wanted to start this for those of us(nanoreefers) who wanted to have a manderin as their soul fish. I on the other hand have quite a few quick fish in my 33long that the manderin is in, his "opponents" for food consist of a 6-line and cherub pygmy angel, w/ the flow in the tank turned off, he seems to fair quite well believe it or not.

Nice work Seanano!! Now you just gotta figure out how to get them to breed, raise the fry to adults and establish a line of captive bred mandarins that always eat prepared food! I'm not holding my breath, but it would definately be nice! - especially for your wallet!

Colin

The main problem I see is this - the fish was not hard to keep in the first place. It simply required you to have some patience and to keep a larger than nano tank. There was no dire need to get this fish onto flake foods - its not like its a sponge eating angel that canno't survive in captivity. Yes its nice that you got it to eat prepared foods, but I only hope this doesn't convince people that they themselves can easily do it.

this wasnt easy by any means. it took a lot of time and patience. i dont think that i've led anyone to believe that it is easy. if i have i do apologize. the reason for my doing this was simply to show people w/ enough time and patience it can be done. it is honestly a great fish and looks amazing in smaller tanks instead of searching for them in larger. my two that i have are still doing great. we did get the 30 manderins today that we were expecting and they are all in the back of the store and we are going to start to see if we can get them started on prepared foods as well. I really got tired of seeing this beautiful/passive fish die merely because 90% of people that own S/W tanks can't sustain the living conditions/diet this fish needs. i honestly dont think there is a member on this board that wouldn't house a manderin if they could.

if the mandarin gives off smoke from their body (near the dorsal fin) what does that mean?

its not smoke, its settlement that it picked up from the sand or rock while snagging food, and its just blowing it out. kinda sifts through to get what it needs.

ahhh ok thanks Sean

np, how's his eating? only eating the pods in the tank or is he taking prepared foods?(At all)? if you would or need any help w/ this please do not hesitate to ask.. despite a lot of crap A LOT of people will give you bout housing this fish even at all. i will do my best to help you keep it alive as long as possible. and on to prepared foods the best i can. Of the 30 we got in at the store i am working with, we tried to humor ourselves and see if they'd eat any of the frozen/flake foods, and much to our surprise 6 of em picked at it already and i want to say in about 2days will w/o a doubt be eating frozen food, most the others recognized the smell as their pods smell like that now so i think we'll have another great success rate. Hopin' for the best! but i think it will turn out well.

hes munching some pods like any mandarins do..i tried feedin him flakes...takes it in and spits it out...i think im gonna go try feeding live brine shrimps...still gotta try frozen cyclop-eeze, mysis....any suggestions Sean?

this is from another post i made on clear blue's directed towards his housing of a manderin. sorry, i guess some of my psychedelics lazyness is wearing off on me. i can't push bloodworms enough. brine live or frozen is useless, unless enriched and even then i still don't find there protein needs being met like worms.

"how's your manderin doing? if he's eating live brine theres a good chance you can get him on to blood worms, and please do that asap.... despite a lot of belief pods arent the sole source of a manderins diet, its flat worms. worms are EXTREMELY high in protein and thats what it needs, also contains a nice bit of b-12. start dumping 6-9 frozen bloodworms in your brine tank a day. 3, 3x a day. before you goto bed remove em. after 3-4days drop in a worm or two w/ the brine. and see if the manderin takes to it.... as stated above, fat doesnt always equal healthy. hope this is of help. if you goto the fish forum i made a post about weening them the best way possible atleast that i've seen the highest success rate. again, imo pods are only a small part of a manderins diet and need the worms much more. and since flat worms in a tank is a pita, stick w/ blood worms. as far as feed blooding worms if you can get a straw/tube and dump them down it and let em float to the bottom of a spot your manderin likes to hang out, it'll become a "feeding" area for him and make life on you easier instead of dumping them in and forcing him to decide whether or not he wants to chase em... as peaceful as they are. they are f'n LAZY when it comes to feeding."

hope that helps.

ps. if you have an aim name please let me know that way i can communicate w/ ya more directly and quickly. anyone that wants to reach me i am at, SeanMichael413, on aim.

Mandarin's are totally beautiful, I wish I could find a flake-eating one

i only feed them flake once a day, the other two times i feed him its strictly blood worms, and whatever he snags out of the emerald entree that the other fish get.

Originally posted by Seanano

i only feed them flake once a day, the other two times i feed him its strictly blood worms, and whatever he snags out of the emerald entree that the other fish get.

Ive seen mandarins eat bloodworm but I also noticed the worms die instantly and break apart within seconds. theres a ton of pollution. I really doubt this is a quality food for them.

frozen bloodworms imo are already dead and these b*tches do anything but breakapart. as far as pollution havent noticed any rise in any params. as far as being quality, compare the genetics of pods to brine you honestly wont find too much more of a difference, vs anytype of worm which is loaded in protein and b-12, both which pods are pretty low on. going on 7months now and both my mandarins are doing great and love their blood worms so i am not gonna argue w/ em. All results are great from everyone who's bought some from the store.

Give us an update. What was the success rate out of the 30 you brought in?? How long have you had one still living that has been raised off this method?

I had a manderin once before I had to sell all my fish and he would eat frozen brine shrimp, he was just picky about what ones he would eat, he would eat about 10 and spit out 20 others

Well of the 30, we actually have 26 of them eating, the last four will prolly do so shortly as they do spend sometime depicting whether they want to eat it or not..... this was done in a much shorter time span then last time. my two are doing GREAT. going on their 7months mark and the lunge towards the top of the tank when its feeding time. despite moving and swimming very slowly, these sob's can move... get fed 2x a day and i make sure they get 5-7 worms per feeding. we've actually sold 10 of the 30 already so we're down to 16. sob's flyin' out the door.