Best way to get a Mandarin to eat prepared food?

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elijones244

Premium Member
Fell to the temptation and bought a Green Mandarin. [smilie=itwasntme.gif] I read Marks article and am using a form of his "mandarin diner" set in a breeder box filled with pellets/mysis soaked in garlic and kent "zoecon". I got him on the 11th and have replaced the food in the diner ever day since, he goes in but hasn't touched it. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. Also, if you have one eating prepared, how did you do it?
 
Best I've heard, had a member tell me he puts them in a breeder container for a few weeks and eventually it just eats.... Or starves, I suppose :) lol. But I just ordered another batch of pods for mine, so haven't tried the switch.
 
I use a good mix of blended foods and put a drop of garlic xtreme on each small cube I feed and my scooter bleeny goes crazy for it but still goes mostly after pods unless I feed garlic xtreme on the mixed food.
 
In the Nov/Dec 2011 Coral Magazine (which you can get the free app of back issues on an iPhone) there was an article about it. Short version: get a breeder net to keep it in. Feed live brine shrimp. Then drip in some sort of garlic/supplement. Then start using frozen brine shrimp you soaked in the same solution. Then continue to whatever prepared food you want. The author said the key at the beginning was the breeder netting. The lge brine shrimp get stuck against by the current, so when you the frozen shrimp the current pushes it up against the netting and it 'wiggles' too.
 
That's how I got my Scooter trained. I had him in a breeder box and put live brine in first for a couple of days, then frozen mysis.
He would ignore pellets even soaked or he would take one and spit it out.
After about 3 weeks I let out into main tank and now when he sees turkey baster entering tank, he comes right up to the end of baster waiting for the food to come out.
 
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