and maybe i missed it but why not buy a mandarin that already eats frozen??
they are not as easy to find but do come up from peple and lfs

yeah i understand that they only eat things close to the bottom, what i meant was that i was going to feed them live brine shrimp and progress to frozen shrimp and other frozen food. once they start eating frozen i'll release them into the tank and drop a cube at night which he can find after. are your mandarins already trained on to frozen? if so how much are you asking per one?
thanks

This makes a big difference because it gives pods a safe place to hide and breed so none of the fish can decimate the population.

Matt Pedersen describes a great way to train Mandarins to eat frozen brine shrimp in the Nov/Dec 2011 CORAL magazine. If you don't have it, you can order back issues on their website. I've used Matt P's method once and it worked well, I just found using my messy 10 gallon temp tank is easier.

im going to try and see if i can find any already eating frozen but this will be like my back up incase it doesnt workout.

thanks and i agree that will be something i'll incorporate into my tank. and i will deffinitely be checking it out