A new development...
Joe, the president of my local reef club, makes up a special frozen omnivore food recipe in the food processor. He gave me a bunch of frozen cubes during our latest trade the other day. The stuff is a lot of shrimp, krill, squid, selcon, some plant life, etc. and gelatin for thickness all blended together and frozen.
I dropped in a piece and the clown (named "Spit" by my wife for her tendency to try out food and then spit it out) tried a piece and lived up to her namesake.
The mandarin was getting noticably excited as he hovered around the tank, drawing close to where the piece landed.
He charged right for the piece and took the whole thing in his mouth. Unfortunately Spit moved in and stole the piece, but the mandarin continued eating small bits of it on the sand.
I imagine the stuff is very similar to Marine Cuisine which several mandarin owners have reported success in getting their fish to eat.
I'll try to get a pic of it sometime. It's pretty crazy.
- J
http://joshday.com