I used to breed brine shrimp for my baby angelfish and other FW fish.

I got a little 5 gallon aquarium with one of those cheap little aquaclear filters with a dark drop cloth overtop.

Hatched WAY to many on the first try and ended up not needing 90% of them.

You can buy the kits or just the eggs from your LFS

First of all, not all mandarins will eat brine shrimp. Most that do only eat the newly hatched brine.
Also, most people hatch bbs, they don't breed them as they have to become adults before they produce liveborn.
For the mandarins, the bbs should be ongrown for about 24 hours after hatchout, and then enriched for two 12 hour stages with new water and enrichment for the second 12 hours stage.
While adult brine can be enriched in a matter of about 4 hours, bbs take a full day for the maximum enrichment, 12 hours for just gut loaded.
It's also safer for the mandarin to decapp or at least sterilize the cysts before hatching as they are known carriers of nasty bacteria.
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/rayjay/Hatcher.html
http://www.angelfire.com/ab/rayjay/brineshrimp.html
When you buy cysts, make sure they have been stored in refrigeration and not kept on shelves or hooks. The quality degrades quickly the longer they are out of refrigeration and is a big reason some people have in failed or poor rates of hatch.

I used a 1l coke bottle and an air pump , no heater . I found that a good lightsource sped up hatching (usually all hatched in 24-30 hours).If you feed the bbs to the mandarin right after hatching thats when they are the most nutrtious . Frozen blood worms have worked for me twice and they where taken first or second try.The hardest part is not spooking the fish when you go to spot feed it , and make sure to cut the blood worms up a bit .

I am hatching and raising baby brine all the time. I also brew phytoplankton to keep them alive. It is quite easy to do. Let me know if you want any info or wanna see it in action.

I have had good success weaning Mandarins onto frozen brine shrimp using a feeding jar. It takes about 2-4 weeks though, so you have to start with a fat one. Mine hangs out in the jar when he wants to get fed. He's a pig.

I find it is easiest if you start with a well established 10 or 20 gallon tank with no other fish/inverts (snails are ok) that has some live rock and a decent amount of macro algae growing in it as well as an abundance of pods. Put the feeding jar in there from the beginning so he gets used to it. After a couple days put 2-3 frozen brine shrimp in the jar (soak it in garlic extract and Selcon first), then siphon the brine shrimp out at the end of the day. He probably won't eat it for a couple weeks so you will have to keep siphoning it out. Eventually he will check it out, and peck at it, and eat it. You will notice after some time that the shrimp aren't there when you go to siphon them out, that's when you can start adding 6-8. Eventually you will find him hanging out in the jar around feeding time, and that's when you know you've done a good job. You can use the taste of the garlic to wean him onto other foods (by soaking them in garlic too), and the Selcon should always be used with brine shrimp because they are not very nutritious.

Having live brine shrimp on hand just in case is not a bad idea. Tigger Pods are pretty easy to culture too if you end up needing them.

Good luck.

thanks a lot for the well written instructions myka, i really appreciate them. i only wish dragonets were easier to feed like most other fish..but i think its totally worth it once they are trained

You're welcome. You have to understand a Mandarin's needs in order for it thrive. Many do not live long even in med/large tanks where there are rambunctious fish that out compete the Mandarin for food. Most fish will eat pods greatly reducing or even clearing the tank of pods, and most fish will get to frozen food before a Mandarin will as well. Simply dumping a Mandarin into a big tank often is not a very good answer. I have actually had the best success with Mandarins in nano tanks where they can be target fed daily. Mandarins are also quite shy, so I get to see them much more often in the nano tanks than I ever did when I had them in bigger reef tanks. What size/type of tank do you plan to keep your Mandarin in?

yeah i agree 100% with that, i don't think its fair to just dump the poor guy in te tank and make him starve to death. im going to hang a container on the inside of my tank so he gets water flow and i can wean him on to frozen. i plan on keeping him in my lightly stocked 65 gallon fowler/semi reef tank. with a pair of clowns {just percula or ocellaris}, a pair of bangaii cardinals, a pajama cardinal, royal gramma and a couple gobies. im going to have around 60 pounds of live rock. i think with such low stocking and a lot of live rock he can still make it to the food before the other fish get it all. pods would also thrive in my tank with low stocking. if anything i can always spot feed or feed at night. idk about how active they are at night but i realize that they live mainly near the bottom and will find the food a lot easier and quicker then the other fish

actually as some have said, you aare hatching brine shrimp.

Mandarins do not actively eat anything in the water unless it is very lose to the sandbed or rocks.

Brine will swim everywhere if they are not freshly hatched.

we have much sucess using white worms, and as the mandarin starts to trust the food in the water column, they will progress to frozen and then pellets.

there are also ways to increase your pod poulation are you running a sump???


growing macro algae is a great place for pods to reproduce. a dark spot in your tank with a rubble pile will help too.

once a week i shake some cheato from my sump in my display to help get them to the display:P