apparently the vast majority of them never accept any foods other than copepods. bob fenner and the WWM guys feel that in any tank smaller than 90 gallons, a mandarin will starve eventually, as it will reduce the pod population to the point that there is no reproduction going on. they say that even in a 90 gallon, it is difficult to maintain a mandarin for a significant period of time.
obviously, see if it will eat any prepared foods. think about adding a fuge for pod production. to me this isn't a "well, let's keep it and see what happens". enough people have tried to keep these and failed. i know a local who just killed two of these guys in a row, trying to keep them in a ~50 gallon tank. they eat all day, and a mind-boggling amount of food at that. another case of beauty being a dooming quality. better left to those with the resources to properly provide for them.
to reaffirm what deb said, they are neither a goby nor a blenny. there are apparently two types of dragonet, psychedelic and manderin. they are identical except in patterning. both are equality beautiful and equally difficult to keep alive.
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-Quinn
Man, n. ...His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth, and Canada. - A. Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, 1906
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