Eep! Mandarin Rescue

[Hyshnari]

Sorry if you've seen this on another discussion board before, but I need all the advice I can get!

 

Well, I went in with my boyfriend to our favorite LFS to pick up some stuff to set up his 55 gallon tank.

 

Next thing I know, the mandarin fish that I saw about a week ago is now a PAIR of mandarins -- and they're EXTREMELY skinny. The male is just sitting on the substrate breathing heavily, and the female is wandering around, looking for pods but not picking at anything since there ARE no pods (which I looked for as well). In fact, there are sponges on the intake and the output of the filters, so I know there's no 'fuge in the back or anything.

 

Unfortunately, the owner, who I know very well, isn't around, but I talk to one of the other workers and she tells me that they've been having problems with those two. They have another one in a larger, bowfront tank (which I didn't see) who is doing well, and taking blackworms as a supplementary food, but they got these two in pretty skinny (which makes me think the one that I saw before was moved to the bowfront -- it was not really skinny) and just now they quit eating. They've been moving them from tank to tank so they can eat pods, but they've pretty much eaten out all of the pods in the store!

 

Now, I don't have enough food to sustain a mandarin for a LONG period of time, but I DO know that my tanks are crawling with pods. So I offer to take them and try and fatten them up a bit. The lady asks the owner, who, of course, knows me very well and offers to just let me have them, but I tell them I don't have the resources to keep them long-term, but perhaps until their tanks can grow more pods, or until these guys will at least eat some supplementary food to hold them over until the pods grow back.

 

So the lady goes to bag the mandarins, and to my shock she just reaches in and PICKS UP the one just lying on the substrate with her hands! She tells me, "Oh, it's ok. I've been able to pick him up with my hands for the past 2 days." -- I finally ask how long they've been in this tank, and she tells me only 6 days...

 

Wait a minute...

2 mandarins + 30 gallon tank = pods wiped out in less than a day!

 

So she ends up giving me BOTH mandarins. I figure they'd be better off with each other, since they'd encourage/teach each other to eat and they seem to have bonded as a male/female pair. So I stick them in my seahorse tank with my H. kuda, Gilgamesh, since I figure MAYBE (just maybe) he might teach them to eat mysis (if I'm lucky).

 

The female, who was searching the old tank for pods, took only a couple minutes after acclimating before she started hunting away. The male, on the other hand, was lying on the substrate -- sometimes sideways or upside down.

 

After 4 hours or so, and thinking that he's going to die anyway if I don't do anything, I decided to jam a piece of mysis in his mouth by hand. To my surprise, he nibbled and ate about half a PE mysis. However, it took me about an hour to get him to eat it, so I tried again with some frozen formula one, thinking he'd be able to bite it a bit better and get it down his throat. He ate a couple bites of that as well, then I didn't want to stress him any longer and let him go.

 

I left the lights on all night, so they could continue to hunt pods, and went to sleep.

 

Woke up at 2AM to check in on them (and make sure the male didn't die and start causing a huge ammonia spike), and to my surprise, the male had MOVED! And he was picking at the sand, although he wasn't hovering like the other mandarin... Just kinda if he saw a pod come near him, he would attack it.

 

That was a good sign, so I went back to sleep.

 

Now I wake up, and his "hover" fin is moving (although he's still not hovering), and he continues to pick at pods that come nearby, although he's not actively hunting. The female is still hunting away, eating pods like they're candy, and I still see pods all over the substrate so I'll leave them in there for now.

 

What do you guys think I should try to feed them once the pods are wiped out?? I have several tanks filled with pods, and one fairly neglected pod culture. In the tank they're in, I've got a couple peppermints ready to drop their babies, but who knows if Gilgamesh will get to them first. I've also got a huge brine shrimp hatchery setup for my dwarves, PE and Hikari mysis, Cyclop-eeze, frozen brine, and bloodworms. I've also got Selcon, Zoecon, and Garlic Extreme.

 

I know it's stupid to think that I can fatten up these mandarins in a 10 gallon tank, but at least that's better than the sure starvation they would have had in the 30 gallon tanks. And I did tell the LFS that I would be bringing them back once they had a place with food for them.

 

Let me know what you guys think about what the next step is. I'm anticipating they'll wipe out the pods in that tank by this weekend, if not today. I'll move them to a second tank when the pods are depleted in the seahorse tank and when they wipe that out too, then I'm going to be stuck feeding them bbs if I can't think of anything else.

[Hyshnari]

Just to let you guys know, the male passed away earlier this afternoon. I really wasn't banking on him passing through as it was. He was pretty far gone, just sitting on the substrate. At one point I even tried hand feeding him, to no avail.

 

The female, on the other hand, is looking up. She's eating tons of pods and baby brine shrimp. Thanks to the baby brine, she hasn't TOTALLY gone through all the pods in the tank, although they're thinning out. I figure I can keep her on the baby brine just to fatten her up temporarily until I can order some pod cultures online. I heard that Gammarus (Amphipods) reproduce faster than copepods -- any comments on that?

 

-Jennifer

[SaltyDawg]

GOOD!!!!! You are EXTREMELY LUCKY to have gotten one to eat baby brine shrimp. They almost NEVER eat anything but pods.

[Tangs rule]

yeah you save the fish I am so sure you will be going to heaven.

the fish world thanks you now i must go to tie my self to a tree

[Doc Shake]

Good deal!! keep up with the selcon boosted brine. Also try some Kent Zoe, it is very high in B complex and C. You did a good thing and got a free fish out of the deal, forget what Tangs rule has to say, just a punk toll.

[mik]

geez tangs rule you dont have to be so obnoxios. Theres no excuse for you being like that and for keeping 3 tangs in a 10 gallon. how would you feel if you got stuffed in a box with no room to move.

 

 

 

p.s. a troll is defined by what your doing in your tank!!

[Hyshnari]

$8 fish or not (and just so you know, the pair were being sold for $54 -- and no, I did not buy them. They were GIVEN to me to try and SAVE THEIR LIVES. By no means did I ever say I wanted to keep the fish in so small of a "box" -- I am just nursing them back to health -- this is a temporary situation)...

 

Anyway, like I was saying... "$8 fish" or not, it is still a LIFE. I am merely trying to save a LIFE. I am not looking for a pat on the back, nor for people to tell me what a good person I am. My primary and ONLY concern is in the well-being of a neglected and starving animal.

 

I find your behavior very childish. I am not looking for people to worship my apparant heavenliness -- I am looking for advice to save a starving fish.

 

As it is, I doubt that this fish has much of a chance - I was aware of that the moment I offered to try and save it. I do not recommend keeping mandarins in 10g tanks - perhaps even if they did eat other foods -- there's simply not enough of a complete nutrition to sustain the mandarin long-term. Don't get me wrong -- I am looking for a better, permanent home for this mandarin. Even if that means trying to give it to another fish store that has a tank, well stocked with LR, pods, and a proper refugium. Unfortunately, the LFS that I went to was having some sort of anniversary sale, and their display tanks were full. I will continue looking.

 

And by the way, she is doing well. She has taken out the pod population, but is eating brine. I plan on keeping her in the seahorse tank for a couple days, feeding baby and enriched brine 3x a day (same as I feed my dwarf seahorses). Probably by Wednesday (if I can catch her) I will move her into the 10g clownfish tank so she can eat some more nutritious pods. Once that population is also eaten, she'll be stuck with enriched brine until the pods can.. well.. repopulate.

 

Believe me -- these mandarins faced certain death if they remained at the LFS. At least there is SOME - even if it is small - hope for them to survive until they can find a proper permanent home.

 

If you read my posts carefully, you will see that I never said that I could save these mandarins -- or that I would keep them long-term. Please read carefully before deciding to be rude about it. I am not begging for compliments - merely advice.

 

Thanks everyone for your support!

[Withers]

is there any way of actually banning people from all of nano-reef? if there is, i nominate Tangs Rule. Seems pretty obvious that he just made that handle so he could go out and troll around, looking for someone to give him attention. even in his signature he's still trying to bring attention to himself, pathetic.

 

Hyshnari, if you can get the mandarin to take non-living foods, i think bloodworms are the closest substitute to pods as far as nutrition, but i could be wrong. maybe i can find where i read that.

[Hyshnari]

My boyfriend has freshwater dwarf puffers and has a freezer full of bloodworms. I'll give it a try tomorrow during her next feeding. She seems a bit shy today so I haven't been able to get a good look at how her stomach is looking, but from what I can tell it doesn't look worse than before.

 

She's just like a peppermint shrimp. Sits in the back all day until I either turn my back or food comes their way. Silly thing.

[leo]

You might want to section a corner of the tank with a piece of eggcreate light defusser. This will give your pods a safe place away from the mandrian. or pile some LR rubbel up. Good luck and good job.

[Hyshnari]

Oh. My. Gosh.

 

Was heading out to dinner, and fed my clowns a little treat of cyclopeeze before I stepped out. The mandarin was all crunched up in the corner of the tank (she hates it when I mess around in there and hides all the time), but I had forgotten to put the cyclopeeze freezer bar back in the freezer before I stepped out the door.

 

Went back into my room to get it and I saw the mandarin pick at something in the sand... Something red and cyclopeeze-like.

 

No way. She's still skinny as a stick!

 

I sit there REAL still for about 5 minutes and watch as the mandarin is gobbling away like there is no tomorrow on cyclopeeze!

 

Hooray!

 

She ONLY picks it off of the sand or rock. But she's DEFINITELY eating it. I had to leave, but I watched as she sucked in several of the red bugs.

 

So she eats dead food. Awesome! I would think that cyclopeeze isn't a nutritionally sound diet for a mandarin, but its better than baby brine shrimp, which I had resorted to feeding. I'm going to try some bloodworms later tonight or tomorrow morning and see what happens.

 

Anyways, just sharing the good news!

[Cody]

Originally posted by Hyshnari

$8 fish or not (and just so you know, the pair were being sold for $54 -- and no, I did not buy them. They were GIVEN to me to try and SAVE THEIR LIVES. By no means did I ever say I wanted to keep the fish in so small of a "box" -- I am just nursing them back to health -- this is a temporary situation)...

 

Anyway, like I was saying... "$8 fish" or not, it is still a LIFE. I am merely trying to save a LIFE. I am not looking for a pat on the back, nor for people to tell me what a good person I am. My primary and ONLY concern is in the well-being of a neglected and starving animal.

 

I find your behavior very childish. I am not looking for people to worship my apparant heavenliness -- I am looking for advice to save a starving fish.

 

As it is, I doubt that this fish has much of a chance - I was aware of that the moment I offered to try and save it. I do  not looking for people to worship my apparant heavenliness -- I am looking for advice to save a starving fish.

 

As it is, I doubt that this fish has much of a chance - I was aware of that the moment I offered to try and save it. I do not recommend keeping mandarins in 10g tanks - perhaps even if they did eat other foods -- there's simply not enough of a complete nutrition to sustain the mandarin long-term. Don't get me wrong -- I am looking for a better, permanent home for this mandarin. Even if that means trying to give it to another fish store that has a tank, well stocked with LR, pods, and a proper refugium. Unfortunately, the LFS that I went to was having some sort of anniversary sale, and their display tanks were full. I will continue looking.

 

Tang Rule u just got told man, way to go Hyshnari i am very interested in how ur going about this, i am alos happy u trying to save the madarins as they are a really cool fish. GOOD LUcK!

[SaltyDawg]

Tangs Rule = ASSHAT! DAVE ESPI LIVES!!!!!!

[Doc Shake]

Hyshnari, that is so cool. Give the cyclopeeze a good 6+hour soak of Selcon in the fridge. The HUFA and PUFA in that stuff should do the trick.

[raciampa]

I have a spotted mandarin that eats mysis shrimp out of my hand. I didn't see if you had a green or spotted one. The green mandarins never adapt to prepared foods. It is not good to feed your reef live brine because they introduce a lot of bacteria. Good Luck!

[Withers]

YAY, congratulations!

[tontor33]

Hyshnari, any updates?

[kwl1763]

Awesome. Most of the time I have found they will eventually eat prepareds. It is a lot of work. Start mixing in blood worms with live brine. Keep using a pipett to put it right in front of them. They will eventually eat a bloodworm (even by accident) and then it's downhill from. Some never will but with a lot of patience and coaxing many many will.

[doody]

Mine loves blood worms and cyclopeeze. She'll eat mysis but is very picky bout the ones she does eat. She's doin great in my 5g, and my pod pop still seems very good

[ccjung]

Sorry to add to this but yeah, I have a mandarin that eats pods in my cube, and will eat bloodworms.. He's been a champ though, and i think typically they are extremely picky...

[doody]

Even though it's eating frozen food, you still have to feed very often. I feed mine three times a day. You'll also want to soak food in selcon as mentioned. I want to try to get mine to eat dry foods. It'll make life a little easier when vacation time comes.

[Myout]

Looking at another board I found a link to essentiallivefoods.com that has copepods for sale. Has anyone tried the hatchery that the website mentions and used it to keep a mandarin alive in a smaller tank? How many copepods are necessary per day to keep a dragonet healthy? I am tempted to try it but am hoping that someone else has and can give advice...