[daniella3d]

Tiger pods won't survive in our aquarium very long. It's a total waste of money.

The best way to handle a mandarin is to have pods to begin with..so wait until you do. Buy cheato and put a refugium or something similar where they can reproduce. They need phytoplankton to survive.

Then you get a new mandarin and put it in QUARANTINE! while in quarantine with liverock and pods, train it to eat something else. Fish roe (caplan eggs) those orange eggs that are found on sushi is excellent for them, and live white worms which they go nuts for.

I have 2 mandarins now, my first male was killed by a yellow tang, and all 3 of them ate live white worms and loved them.

My male now is eating spirulina brine, live white worm and pods. I enrich the white worms by adding Selcon to the milk and bread I feed the worms. I have been feeding my madarins with this for 2 years and my copperband has been eating these worms almost exclusively for a year now.

No way you're going to lose a mandarin from starvation if you give it live white worms. I have never seen a fish refuse that food.

You buy a live culture and get it going...it's easy, good and cheap food for healthy fish.