teaching a fish to eat offered foods

[dreams]

one of the main reasons i upgraded to a larger tank was because i want to house a spotted mandarin...i have the LR, the fuge, i have sponge filters in a 40g growing pod populations....i will be adding a pod pile to the display and am considering adding an in dispay hang-on fuge

my question: is there any method of teaching ths type of fish to eat offered foods?....in all my reading, i haven't run across any info on this type of thing

TIA

[leebca]

An exciting question! (Then again, maybe it's just exciting because I have an answer).

There are a couple of very good articles from people who have gotten such fish eating other foods. First, before reading the references below, I would encourage you to first put the fish through a quarantine process. In the confines of a QT you will be much more successful at getting this guy to eat other foods.

Next, note that the consensus is that a 40g tank is too small for a mandarin to feed on pods naturally. The consensus is that a single mandarin will need no less than 100 pounds of LR to support its needs for pods, and that means an aquarium of no less than 70 gallons.

Once in your display tank, the fish will 'get lost' and often never learn anything new.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-02/nftt/index.htm
http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

Don’t ever believe a mandarin is not possible to quarantine; don’t ever believe that a mandarin is totally impervious to Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans).

[dreams]

thank lee:-)

i have a 110g.....that will the the mandarins home

i also have a 40g and 10g.....the 40g has some cc, filter sponges, & cheato in it for pods (i don't do much maintinence on it, just feed it every fews days or so).....the 10g is empty & can be used as a hospital tank, if necessary

the articles address feeding the mandarin after has learned to eat, but not really anything on teaching one to eat initially

what i am getting from you is to use the 40 as a quarentine for the mandarin and place him/her in that tank......from that point i will attempt to get the fish to eat food that i offer to him/her? (there is not near enough pods in that tank for the fish to survive)

is there any methodology for this?


aside from the formula pellets, which foods whould you suggest trying?

[leebca]

TIA,

I'd recommend using the 10g for the QT. You're not trying to support the fish with pods on the outset. You want to give the fish a chance to learn new foods right off the bat. I thought the 40g was your display. Sorry.

Make sure the water quality and especially the pH of the water is correct. Many fish will start to eat after they settle in for a short time AND if the water quality is to their liking. So, proper acclimation is important and having the QT in a quiet room where you can spend quiet time in front of the tank can encourage the fish to relax.

In the 10g I would offer frozen baby brine shrimp, and tiny pellets first. These things would need to sink to the bottom of the QT because, as you probably know, this fish tends to feed off the bottom.

If these fail, the fall back position will be to try freshly hatched baby brine shrimp, leading to the frozen and then pellets.

If it fails to try the live baby brine, gather some pods up from your tank and put them in the QT and see if it will eat those.

Keep trying frozen baby brine and tiny pellets, mixed in with its live foods, slowly increasing the amount of the frozen and pellets and decreasing the amount of live.

Don't let the fish 'train you.' Keep offering what you want it to eat even if it ignores it after it has begun to eat anything. If for instance it doesn't like the tiny pellet, change pellet brands, formulas, etc. but don't stop trying the pellets.

You can try frozen Daphnia too, just to see if it will start eating. You don't want it to get used to this food, since it isn't the best food for it. You can try almost any food that is small (like baby brine).

Uneaten hatched baby brine can be put into your 'pod factory' for the carnivore pods to eat. The left over frozen baby brine can go that route, too.

[dreams]

thank you very much, lee....i appreciate the help:-)