I really need to do a webpage on that as well, as everyone
has been asking me that same question.

For a long time, my blue mandarin was a very happy fish in
my 29g, and would eat prepared foods, much to my delight.
Since that was the case, I never worried about it. However,
in the 280g reef, it was actually being starved to death due
to stress by the other mandarins harassing it as well as the
voracious Tangs that would circle around it and get every
morsel off the sand.

That is when I remembered it was able to eat on its own in
the past, but this necessitated some alone time. So about
2.5 months ago, I started putting food in a spaghetti sauce
jar, and lowering that into the tank. The mandarin could go
in and get some Formula One *small* pellet food, or Formula
Two, when it was interested.

You can read and see the details he
http://www.melevsreef.com/archives/2...1_archive.html

The problem was that the other fish liked that food too, and
the smaller tangs would fold up their fins and slip in to
get the food and back right out again. I watch my huge Naso
Tang hover in front of the mouth of the jar, and wave its
fins back and forth to create current which would wash the
pellets out into the open where it could get them. He was
very adept at this, as I saw him to it often.

So after a month of this, I finally picked up an olive jar,
as that would limit the size of the fish entering the Diner.
I took a piece of acrylic, heated it and wrapped it around
the jar to act as handle for easy reach on a daily basis.

I even tried feeding her some newly hatched baby brine
shrimp, but that really didn't work out so well. I never
bothered trying it a second time.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/1204/feeding_bbs.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/1204/...in_pellets.jpg

I've continued to use a mixture of the two pellets every
day, and the mandarin is almost back to its original plump
self. Keep in mind that I feed newly hatched brine to the
tank every day, with the pumps off. This allows the smaller
fish the opportunity to eat, and the larger fish just wade
through the food like whales.

Other fish still go in the Mandarin Diner, including my Six
Line Wrasse, the Lawnmower Blenny, Blue Damsels... but the
tangs can only hover near the opening hoping for stray
pellets to accidentally come out.

Various snails and hermits go into the Diner at night, and
each morning I refill it for the new day, with about 1 tsp
of pellets. If there is too much food in the jar, it tends
to rot and ferment, and an airbubble collects in the jar.
That is a good indicator of overfeeding. I will dump that
in the sink and rinse the jar out with tap water, and use
less food.

I have four Mandarins in my tank, but the Blue ones are the
ones that are near it constantly. They travel the tank, but
know the food is at the Mandarin Diner daily. There are
times I've lifted the diner with fish in it, dropped in more
food and let it back down. Other times I'll put the food
down on the substrate, and within 10 seconds the mandarin
goes right in.

I'm really glad this has worked out so well.



Dave Town wrote:
Hey Marc - I just read your blog... tell me about your "mandarin
diner". One of your concoctions ? What do your mandarins eat. I was
under the impression that they only ate "live". Do tell !

Dave Town



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