Very, very unlikely to get a feeding response in the LFS. It can take a ling time to get them eating.

I have a mandarin , alone, in a twenty. She is eating I am sure as she is fat. The tank has no competition so any pods are hers. I also use a HOB fuge. O drop in NLS finicky pellets and although I have yet to actually see her consume them, she definitely gets excited when pellets float around c

Good luck. Do more research and choose wisely.

My first mandarin is by far the most expensive fish that I have ever owned. My second one cost me less than $20. Lessons learned I guess.

There are a couple of questions that you need to ask yourself.

1. If you end up with a Mandarin that you can't train, are you willing/able to sustain him on pods?

2. If you do manage to train him, you will still need to target feed him. Do you have the time for this?

I trained both my Mandarins to eat frozen food, but in the end I just left them to fend for themselves. Ive had the first one for a couple of years and the second one for a couple of months. There are more than enough pods in my tank for both of them.

- Brad

+1 ^^^

Well I decided that I am not gonna get the fish, Maybe I will wait until I have a much bigger tank that has more live rock. Thanks for all the help!

If you're really wanting a Mandarin, see if a LFS in your area has access to ORA's captive bred dragonets. They're all supposed to be frozen or pellet trained, I believe.

Link here