Keeping Mandarins?

It's not that Dilly isn't eating the blood worms. He loves them and eats them with ease. It's that they're not good for him He's lost so much weight :( Even though he's eating 3-4 worms a day!!! So others suspect he's got some type of parasite as to the reason for his weight loss. Or that the worms just aren't sustaining him. I've yet to be able to get him to eat anything else. He wont even go after the pods that are crawling all over the freaking place!!!

he would be eating about 10-20 worms a day if he ate the mini's

It's not how many or the size he's eating DC. It's the fact it's all he's eating, it's not natural or healthy for him. They're not even meant for saltwater fish!

Well Dilly is still alive but thin as ****. I'm trying to get him to eat something else besides the freaking blood worms. It's not been easy. But I'll not give up!!! As long as he show's an interest in food and is active I'll continue on........

i dont know why your having such trouble with this fish, of the few mandarins ive had not one gave me any trouble getting onto frozen food(mysis, cyclops, bloodworms, brine). just get a turkeybaster or seasquirt and spray it right at him a mix of a few different things and he will eventually eat it. mine even go up into the water column to grab frozen food thats moving pretty quickly

DC-if you've read this thread AT ALL you'll see that I've been feeding Dilly via a turkey baster for the last 13 weeks! He takes the blood worms with no problems. It's anything and everything else he won't eat. I've tried!
Every fish is different......I'm very happy for you that your Mandarin's are doing so well :)

I've read where Tazzy mentioned F3 & F4 so maybe Dilly's had his brains scrambled from inbreeding. Who the **** knows? But I do know he eats nothing like any fish I've ever encountered. Even other Mandarins. Being a picky eater is one thing, but allowing yourself to starve to death is another. Especially when your natural food source is in abundance.
I sit and watch the pods crawl all over the LR, Dilly doesn't even look at em twice :( Squirt the food in front of him, it just goes right past him without a second thought. Does he see it? Yes! But with a little coaxing he'll snap a blood worm right out of the baster. Go freaking figure :blackeye::smash::shake-head:

I've decided to set up a small qt tank and treat Dilly using Maracyn 2. I've got to at least try something.....

I hope you have luck with your treatment. I had a green mandarin do well for about a year then started getting thin and never came back. It was a male. I also have a target that is fat and healthy. So I really don't know what happened but the target is fat and healthy. It as also a female. I removed the target after the green started to thin thinking it was out competed for food, but it did not recover. I brought the target back after the green passed. It's doing well.

I sit every day looking at this poor lil guy. Wishing he would either start eating or die. His tail is starting to grow back and he is very active but now he's not even taking the blood worms anymore. He acts like he's hunting all the time but I never see him pecking at anything.
I'm afraid to move him into QT. Thanks for that Jim....
http://img.tapatalk.com/6c5b834d-356f-6f12.jpg

Dilly's movements have lessened greatly. Mostly just sits on the SB. I've continued target feeding him some copped up plankton. Just squirt it in front on his mouth. Wishing he would take a bite. He's no longer accepting the blood worms...all his yellow in his face has faded and is more white.
I have such a hard time accepting that a fish would just allow itself to starve to death.....:crying::crying: