Looking to start a discussion about captive bred vs wild caught mandarins... I'm all for the captive breeding of fish in general and I'm not looking to start up a captive bred vs wild caught conversation because captive breeding is way better hands down. I'm just looking to get people's thoughts on if captive bred mandarins are worth the extra money?
I'm going to great lengths to prepare my tank for a mandarin since it's smaller and would go against the "you can only keep a mandarin with a larger aquariun" by culturing different pods, phyto and preparing newly hatched brine shrimp and possibly even going so far as researching rasining live mysis shrimp as well..
If I spend the $90+ dollars on a captive bred mandarin that eats frozen food and gets a taste of live food would it essentially be the same as buying a wild caught one for $20-$30 and trying to get it to eat frozen food? Hope that made sense it does in my head...
My main goal in all the culturing is to allow a mandarin to thrive in my smaller than suggested tank for a mandarin even if a captive bred one didn't end up eating frozen...
Again just looking for people's thoughts and experiences above and beyond the normal advice of if you get one make sure it's not emancipated and make sure it's hunting in the LFS tanks and so forth...
I'm going to great lengths to prepare my tank for a mandarin since it's smaller and would go against the "you can only keep a mandarin with a larger aquariun" by culturing different pods, phyto and preparing newly hatched brine shrimp and possibly even going so far as researching rasining live mysis shrimp as well..
If I spend the $90+ dollars on a captive bred mandarin that eats frozen food and gets a taste of live food would it essentially be the same as buying a wild caught one for $20-$30 and trying to get it to eat frozen food? Hope that made sense it does in my head...
My main goal in all the culturing is to allow a mandarin to thrive in my smaller than suggested tank for a mandarin even if a captive bred one didn't end up eating frozen...
Again just looking for people's thoughts and experiences above and beyond the normal advice of if you get one make sure it's not emancipated and make sure it's hunting in the LFS tanks and so forth...