Why so many fish problems

[paul b]

It seems to me that there are so many posts asking how to care for a particular fish "after" it was bought.  Copperbands and mandarins seem to be at the top of the list for advice, and both of those fish are not hard to care for but they do require just a little different methods to feed than something like a clown fish which will eat cardboard and still spawn.  These fish should be fed what they were designed to eat and not "taught" to eat something you may have hanging around the house.  Mandarins eat pods or any small "live" creature.  Some will eat pellets or frozen food but that is not their diet and they will probably not live to their normal life span which is "probably" close to ten years or more.  Copperbands live well over 10 years' but in the sea they eat worms as I have spent time with them underwater and that snout was designed to pull worms out of rocks.  I always use live blackworms but earthworms are also fine if small enough.  Frozen bloodworms are also fine if they are real "bloodworms" and not insect larvae that are often called bloodworms.  Copperbands will also eat clams and clams are one of the best foods for them.  Almost none of them will eat pellets or flakes and those foods should not be fed to anything in my opinion but especially copperbands and mandarins.  Many people feed a mandarin frozen food and if it eats it, they feel that is a good thing.  Well, it may be good for you, but that fish needs to eat every few seconds as it can not store that frozen food and it will just get pushed through a short tube that is has for a digestive system.  It gets little nutrition from that as that is not how it was designed to eat.  Mandarins are a very easy, disease resistant, little maintenance fish if they are put in the correct "mature" large enough tank that is not to sterile and is loaded with self replicating pods.  If you have to add pods from a store, your mandarin will starve unless there are pods reproducing on their own.  I have been keeping both mandarins and copperbands since the 70s and have no problems with either of them.  If your mandarin is living on frozen food, it is also catching pods on it's own.  An easy food to feed a mandarin is new born brine shrimp that should be offered every day in a feeder so the food stays near the bottom where that fish eats. This is all just my opinion of course.

Copperband and mandarins eating new born brine shrimp from a feeder.

Pregnant mandarin

[DBL]

Awesome pics, what did you used for that feeder "thing"?

[Coral Hind]

Wow, that is one plump mandarin. Nice post and a good reminder to research before buying.

[paul b]

I wrote an article about it here.

http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/diy-target-feeder-mandarinfish-pipefish-2804/

 

And another one here  http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/keeping-difficult-marine-fish-3898/

[Squishie89]

I cannot believe I just read Paul B post where most of was not jokes!

 

I had a mandarin that ate frozen, he developed a large belly (not eggs) and his belly got so big it ended up bursting and he passed away. I cannot say 100% it was due to his diet of frozen, but I have my suspicions. My current mandarin eats nothing but natural pods in the tank, he looks like the ideal mandarin, not too slim, not too fat, just right.

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Both of these fish imo people have problems with because of the time they spend being transfered from the ocean, in high stress situations and tanks that are not made to feed them. So both are often so skinny, stressed and malnurished when purchased that even if they do start eating again sometimes its to late.

[paul b]

 

I cannot believe I just read Paul B post where most of was not jokes!

Squishie, I am writing a book, if you want jokes, it is filled with them.  I write sort of like Tolstoy and Dr Seuss so it is in between "War and Peace" and "Horton hears a Who" .  Of course there is some fish stuff in there also.  

Edited December 30, 2014 by paul b

[smallreef]

Squishie, I am writing a book, if you want jokes, it is filled with them.  I write sort of like Tolstoy and Dr Seuss so it is in between "War and Peace" and "Horton hears a Who" .  Of course there is some fish stuff in there also.  

Would be so....freakin.....awesome!

 

You do know we would all buy it Paul right?