My cousin gave me a mandrian that she swor was eating brine shrimp, but I have yet  to see him eat I'm affraid I might lose him before he gets any bigger. So if any one has some pods I can buy ASAP please let me know.

I know they sell them at the fish drs up here but you will go broke buying enough to keep him fed. do you have a fuge/sump?  you should have a good population in your display now if you used live rock when you set up. do you have anything else that eats them in your tank? here is some good info on feeding.  good luck I have seen my mandrian eat a few flakes but he mostly ignores anything but hunting pods.

http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

RJS8540 said :

My cousin gave me a mandrian that she swor was eating brine shrimp, but I have yet  to see him eat I'm affraid I might lose him before he gets any bigger. So if any one has some pods I can buy ASAP please let me know.

Never mind, I got home this evening to find he's no longer with us. I don't know how long my cousin had him but I don't believe he had eaten anything since I picked him up on Mon.  

bummer they are very cool fish. sorry for your loss.

those are one of my favorites also, very sorry to hear about the loss. 

Thanks guys,

Ya' know I wasn't even planning on getting one myself for another 4-5 months, and didn't even know I was getting him on Monday till I got to my cousins house. Then the first question I asked her is "What are you feeding him?" Because I know that her tank had not been up as long as mine. She said that he is eating Brine Shrimp. (I don't think so).

If it lived on nothing but regular brine shrimp, it was probably undernourished and the move could have stressed him out. The regular adult brine is pretty poor in nutrition unless it's the spirulina enriched type.

Sorry to hear about that though. If you want one in the future I'd setup a fuge and get as many pods from people as you can to seed the fuge. Eventually they'll make their way to the display and feed your fish and coral.

My little idea is to have a separate tank with nothing but chaeto and frags(this is my frag tank basically) and then switch out the chaeto every now and then with the tank that has the madarin in it.  This would be for people with small tanks that cannot have a large fuge.  The pod population never gets destroyed and the fish has food every couple of days.

That's a really good idea Zoa. Keeping chaeto is super easy too. I kept mine under a 7w 7500k PC and it grows like crazy. Might set up a macro algae tank here soon, I have a spare 36w PC kit. Stuff grows like mad.