Originally Posted by Myka (Post 754361)

Since the Mandarin is the only fish in the tank you could just train it to eat frozen foods. Put a small dish or plastic lid near the Mandarin's favorite hangout spot. Add 2-3 frozen Brine Shrimp to the dish in the morning, at night siphon them out. Move your powerheads so they don't blow the Brine Shrimp out of the dish if needed. I find using a garlic drop on the food helps too. Keep this up everyday and eventually the Mandarin will taste the food. You know the Mandarin is trained when s/he starts to sit in the dish in the morning waiting for food. They eat a lot once trained, like 10-20 pieces per day!

I have had Mandarins weaned onto frozen food with this method within a week, but have had some take up to 3 weeks. Once the Mandarin is weaned to Brine Shrimp, start introducing it onto Mysis too. Then you can mix it up. Mysis is much more nutritious than Brine Shrimp (which are mostly shell), but Mysis is very fatty so you don't want to feed it exclusively. Brine Shrimp tend to be more enticing for weaning though.