Mandarin Eating Pellets
 

Here's a rarity.

Eventhough I have had the option to get ORA captive bred mandarins lately. I was wondering how well my mandarin was doing in his 10 gallon tank with my Darwins.

I have lots of pods in the tank, and he gets lots of white worms.

Recently I got a bit of an aiptasia and cyano outbreak in the tank, so I decided to spot feed the clownfish, and started to worry about the mandarin a bit. I contemplated removing him to my 90, but low and behold I noticed he was eating NLS pellets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfPLPShwB9A

Though I would share.

Ken - BWA

That's pretty awesome, the small tank makes those aiptasia look like man-eaters.

Good work guys, this is why i like you all so much.

Awesome Ken

Did you take this option? I'm still waiting on a reply to my pm about the pair you said you were bringing in for me.

Ken, you should try new era marine pellet as its very soft due to not being baked and can be crumbled right down, the mandarins may find it more digestable due to the soft nature and high nutrient content.

If you want to try it let me know will send you up some.

Vancouver aquarium research center are now evaluating New Era Aquaculture feeds also. Their breeding program is providing real positive results with the flake.

WOW! That is very cool.

+1 for new era flakes. Ive got an orange spotted filefish eatting this stuff...not te mention my lions and scorpion

I know a number of hobbyists that have their mandarins eating NLS, some for years now. NLS is also one of the main foods fed to the captive bred fish at the ORA facility. http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish/dragonets.html

The fact that a pellet has a high moisture content, and is soft, has absolutely nothing to do with digestibility, or overall nutrient content.

Well done on the mandarin, Ken.

Unbelievable, this is sooooo awsome ! Without seeing the video, I would not have believed it.

I am sorry but this is 100% incorrect.

When you bake food you remove the moisture through the drying process that can be above 140 degrees for over 30 minutes, by nature there is a loss in nutrients, non baked food are broken down swiftly under the fish's natural digestion process, it is more what the fish is used to in the wild, fish eat raw soft flesh/tissue or soft algea.

unbaked foods are pretty much raw ingredients, the nutrient content stays stays in throughout the process and this is where New Era is different and why nearly all the worlds public aquariums and research faciliites use it including Dubai Mall and now Vancouver aquarium research laboratory.

However, awesome work by Ken next step Mandarin breeding program? ;)

If you would like to move this over to your own vendor forum, or better yet out into the open forum, I'd be more than happy to correct your comments above in fine detail. :wink:

We are actually expanding our breeding program, but due to space limitations we are very limited.

Between Doug and myself, we have been able to get quite a few species going. From clownfish to cardinals to seahorses.