I got a dragonet that was near starvation from an LFS and he/she has grown very well over the past year in my tank off pods. Since I got the sun coral at the Feb meeting I have been having some extra frozen mysis strimp in the tank and saw the dragonet eating these which I was really happy about! I'm curious, has anyone ever seen any studies or experience where one hard to train fish will "train" others to pick up a similar diet? If that sorta idea works there are lots of fish that it would be great to apply to.
Dragonets and frozen food
- Thread starter frantz
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My dragonites will eat pellet and frozen
As far as fish training New fish to eat prepared foods Tim at keenreef had garden eals he told me that once he got his oldest one to eat prepared food the others mimiced it and started eating it also so I thank it would work with other pod eaters
Dragonites are slow eaters but are one of the easy fish to train to eat from your hand
As far as fish training New fish to eat prepared foods Tim at keenreef had garden eals he told me that once he got his oldest one to eat prepared food the others mimiced it and started eating it also so I thank it would work with other pod eaters
Dragonites are slow eaters but are one of the easy fish to train to eat from your hand
In my experience, the ones that eat prepared foods are the exception, not the rule.
Scooters seem to take more to prepared foods than Mandarins.
Once I had a pair of Fingered Dragonets (Dactylopus dactylopus) that took to flakes and frozen immediately - which really surprised me. We don't see them too frequently in the trade, but they are awesome fish.
Jenn
Scooters seem to take more to prepared foods than Mandarins.
Once I had a pair of Fingered Dragonets (Dactylopus dactylopus) that took to flakes and frozen immediately - which really surprised me. We don't see them too frequently in the trade, but they are awesome fish.
Jenn
I would agree with Jen that they are the exception. Mine started eating frozen food beginning with RODS, then PE Mysis, onto pretty much anything I throw in the tank (pellets, flakes, cyclopeez, etc).
One thing to note though (in my opinion/experience), keeping a mandarin healthy requires CONSTANT food. If you have no pods, you need to be turning your pumps off and feeding heavily several times per day or they can deterioriate. Mandarins aren't as aggressive as other fish in the tank and if the pumps are on and food is blown around they will rarely get enough food to sustain a healthy size.
I had a massive pod population wiped out about 6 months ago when I went on my quest to rid my tank of red furry algae (which I was mostly successful with). The mandarin has lost probably 30% of its size, to the point of being dangerously low. I am at the point now of rebuilding the pod population and hopefully getting him back to a good size. He still eats anything I put in the tank 2x per day, but it just hasn't been enough for him and I've been cautious in "over-feeding" because of my algae fight.
I guess ultimately what I'm saying is that yes, some will eat prepraed foods, but there are some caveats to keeping one alive and healthy on a completely "non-pod" diet.
One thing to note though (in my opinion/experience), keeping a mandarin healthy requires CONSTANT food. If you have no pods, you need to be turning your pumps off and feeding heavily several times per day or they can deterioriate. Mandarins aren't as aggressive as other fish in the tank and if the pumps are on and food is blown around they will rarely get enough food to sustain a healthy size.
I had a massive pod population wiped out about 6 months ago when I went on my quest to rid my tank of red furry algae (which I was mostly successful with). The mandarin has lost probably 30% of its size, to the point of being dangerously low. I am at the point now of rebuilding the pod population and hopefully getting him back to a good size. He still eats anything I put in the tank 2x per day, but it just hasn't been enough for him and I've been cautious in "over-feeding" because of my algae fight.
I guess ultimately what I'm saying is that yes, some will eat prepraed foods, but there are some caveats to keeping one alive and healthy on a completely "non-pod" diet.
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How are you rebuilding your pod population. I have thrown in a couple of bottles of copepods every now and then. I do see my mandarin pecking away all day but can tell if he's getting any pods or not. What's the process of building a sufficient population of pods which can be sustained through reproduction?
I've had 2 that took to mysis immediately and did very well, and one that wouldn't eat a thing (but was pretty skeletal when I got him so I'm not sure he would have recovered anyway). They are awesome little fish, but I won't get another til I get another big tank going in a few years.
When I started on my algae killing quest, I was using algae-fix every 3 days and GFO changed weekly and it started killing my chaeto. I removed it and basically "shut down" my refugium. I believe that the sustained use of the Algaefix coupled with no chaeto and lowered nutrients wiped out my pod population (along with my snails and a majority of my algae over 4-5 months).
MY method for rebuilding a pod population (and this is very arguable, everyone has an opinion, I just mention what I do) is to restart the fuge - Chaeto, lighting & add 2-3 bottles of tigger pods, and drop some phyto-feast on the chaeto daily.
Within about 4 weeks I have incredible results (I've done this more than once).
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