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tlindsey

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My second favorite fish of all time after the Banggai Cardinalfish. I used to buy starving mandarins from my LFS, train them onto frozen and pellets and sell them to hobbyists who couldn't sustain an untrained mandarin. Ive got a huge soft spot for these fish lol.

Wow! pellet trained . How long did it take to get them to eat pellets.
 

Man vs fish

Exodon
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Wow! pellet trained . How long did it take to get them to eat pellets.
Every fish was different, I had roughly 45 fish trained by the time i stopped doing it, only about 3 of those wouldn't take pellets when i was done with them. But on average I had a turnover rate of about 2 months with each fish. Had an 8 tank system, 4 for mandarins and 4 for breeding banggai. The first mandarin tank was a rehab tank in which i dosed with pods to get weight back on them and also mixed in cyclopeeze and ova eggs which most fish took those right off the bat. The second tank was stage 2: Baby food jar feeding in which i used baby food jars and placed cyclopeeze, ova, live tigger pods, and brine shrimp. the tank was still supplemented with pods but not as often and i used a turkey baster to gently blow a small current when they were near the jar to make the frozen move ever so slightly to stimulate feeding. This process normally took 10-20 days to get them feeding on the frozen mixture with gusto. Tank 3(stage 3) was removing live pods, minimal ova and cyclopeeze, and mostly brine and the introduction of mysis shrimp. The mysis for many of the fish was a challenge to get them to eat it, but they figured out it was good stuff within 5-10 days. Tank 4 was the longest stay of the fish. 15-25 days in this tank was removing brine shrimp(obviously not very nutritious) and using 50% mysis and 50% Thera+a pellets the smallest size they offer i forget what the actual size is. While they suck of the mysis they accidentally take the pellets in every now and then and eventually develop a taste for them to the point where the pellets don't have to move or anything they will take them. I never removed the baby jar when training as it was a method of recognition for them and they always went right to the jar when i came in the room. But yeah, a couple months average was the overall time period to get them onto pellets.
 
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tlindsey

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Every fish was different, I had roughly 45 fish trained by the time i stopped doing it, only about 3 of those wouldn't take pellets when i was done with them. But on average I had a turnover rate of about 2 months with each fish. Had an 8 tank system, 4 for mandarins and 4 for breeding banggai. The first mandarin tank was a rehab tank in which i dosed with pods to get weight back on them and also mixed in cyclopeeze and ova eggs which most fish took those right off the bat. The second tank was stage 2: Baby food jar feeding in which i used baby food jars and placed cyclopeeze, ova, live tigger pods, and brine shrimp. the tank was still supplemented with pods but not as often and i used a turkey baster to gently blow a small current when they were near the jar to make the frozen move ever so slightly to stimulate feeding. This process normally took 10-20 days to get them feeding on the frozen mixture with gusto. Tank 3(stage 3) was removing live pods, minimal ova and cyclopeeze, and mostly brine and the introduction of mysis shrimp. The mysis for many of the fish was a challenge to get them to eat it, but they figured out it was good stuff within 5-10 days. Tank 4 was the longest stay of the fish. 15-25 days in this tank was removing brine shrimp(obviously not very nutritious) and using 50% mysis and 50% Thera+a pellets the smallest size they offer i forget what the actual size is. While they suck of the mysis they accidentally take the pellets in every now and then and eventually develop a taste for them to the point where the pellets don't have to move or anything they will take them. I never removed the baby jar when training as it was a method of recognition for them and they always went right to the jar when i came in the room. But yeah, a couple months average was the overall time period to get them onto pellets.


This is great info especially with those who are thinking of owning Mandarin or Scooter Blennies. I thought I was doing something when I weaned Seahorses on Mysis shrimp.
 
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Man vs fish

Exodon
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This is great info especially with those who are thinking of owning Mandarin or Scooter Blennies. I thought I was doing something when I weaned Seahorses on Mysis shrimp.
Definitely took a lot of trial and error but those fish are worth it, seahorses are sweet too. I had a breeding colony of pygmies in a 55 hex that was directly fed into a 300g rubbermaid refugium that i pulled my pods from. The endless stream of live mysids and pods made that seahorse tank carefree lol. I added baby brine when there was multiple large clutches to make it easier on the baby ponies, but other than that i never touched that tank other than clearing the glass of algae.
 

tlindsey

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Aug 6, 2011
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Ohio
Definitely took a lot of trial and error but those fish are worth it, seahorses are sweet too. I had a breeding colony of pygmies in a 55 hex that was directly fed into a 300g rubbermaid refugium that i pulled my pods from. The endless stream of live mysids and pods made that seahorse tank carefree lol. I added baby brine when there was multiple large clutches to make it easier on the baby ponies, but other than that i never touched that tank other than clearing the glass of algae.


Thanks for sharing!
 
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