You can buy the tiny pods, they are expensive and IME don't replicate.
Your mandarin will easily polish off the pods in a 40 than will not have anything to eat.
Wait until you upgrade to a larger tank which you no doubt will in the future.
Don't purchase the mandarin now.

You can buy Tigger pods at J&L or Ocean Aquatics. They're not cheap though ($20). I"ve had my mandarin for nearly a year now, and he seldom eats anything but pods. Now and then I'll see him take a bloodworm. I buy a bottle of Tigger Pods every other month and dump half into the tank and half into the fuge to replenish the stock.

I have mine eating pellet and frozen mysis.

And you have yours in a 45g Cameron? Was it always eating that, or did you have to wean it?

you don't need to keep buying bottles of pods and putting them in your tank. You just need a protected area the pods can reproduce (refugium/sump) so that the dragonets don't fully deplete the population. Tiggers pods do reproduce if you give them the right home. Buying bottles of pods and dumping them in your tank gets pricey (trust me:lol:). Its worth it to buy one of these if you want to keep dragonets in a system under 75G http://www.jlaquatics.com/product/AQ...+-++Small.html. Sure it seems a bit pricey at first but i have easily spent $200 (:lol:maybe more) on pods. By having a HOB refugium you can be assured your dragonets will eat well and live heathy.

Not sure what they fed him at the store, was looking a little thin when I got her about 18 months ago. Just turned all the flow off and squirted some mysis in front of her and she ate it. Has only started to eat pellets within the last 6 months.

I will post up a pic, she is FAT.

Hi Koresample,

I have kept 2 mandarins in a 46 gallon bowfront for more than 3 yrs. I was running a sump at the time and also fed them tigger pods from reef nutrition. The did eat some black worms as well.

The were healthy and active.

I think that Koresample and the rest of us would like to know whether you are a hobbyist who has experience in keeping mandarins or whether you are a fish store owner who has an interest in selling them.
If you are a LFS owner, IMO you have an obligation to disclose this in your original posting or signature.

what makes you think that Dunweb is a store owner compared to the rest of us who have said we keep Mandarins and list out setups?

I await Dunweb's reply.
Wayne