Spotted Mandarin...eatings but getting skinny....
 

I have had my spotted mandaring for over 2 years. He has been eating mysis for years. I had him in my 45gal long, with rocks, and sand bed, in Victoria.

I moved to Abbotsford, moved all live stock into a 250RedSeaMax, he is eating mysis again but I have gone to bare bottom.


Could moving to the bare bottom be starving him, not sure how he is still eating mysis.....Should I go back to a sand bed????

I don't have a mandarin yet so take what I say with a grain of salt, but how is your pod population? They say to wait a year before adding a mandarin to a tank, maybe the new tank isn't established enough to support the little guy?

i had a spotted mandarin for a year he was doing well eating bryne and 24/7 off the rocks then i scrubbed my rock to remove algae and he died - the frozen wasnt enough to support him w/o rock bugs - - i did notice he was going for mysis just before he died - he never ate mysis before - may be he was desperate - my mistake on removing all his live food -

same rocks as what I had in victoria....I know I had tons of pods there...was running crushed coral and sand. Not sure where they went or didnt make it in the transfer.

if you need a quick fix - i got a biopellet reactor and the thing is a pod breading ground - tons of pods in it after only a month.
hope he makes it - i really like them

The sand bed adds live critters to your tank. Your mandarin needs live critters to survive.
Take up the offer to re-critter your tank. Your mandarin is starving to death.
Soak the mysis with selcon to add vitamins.