I'm considering getting a Mandarin that will require pods in a tank.
This may be a silly question but how do you know if your tank has pods ? I see lots of little creatures swiming about in my 3 year old reef tank but how do I know what they are ?
Mandarins will deplete your pod population fairly rapidly. I'm not sure if a 45 gallon tank will be large enough-I could be wrong on this. They constantly hunt for pods all day long so it might be in your best interest to also create areas in the tank where the mandarin can't get so that the pods can regenerate in those areas.
The suggest amount of LR a tank should have to support a mandarin is 100 lbs. Having said that I've seen a guy who kept a mandarin in a 15g nano. You can train some to take frozen or live brine but this guy used pod injections. He basically farmed pods in outside containers and dumped them into his tank twice a week.
You can do it, but how much time and effort are you willing to put into it?
I read an article in one of the Fish mags where a guy kept Mandarins in a nano. He got them to eat the small flying fish roe that you eat in sushi bars.
Here is a link to one of the article. I have a 50 gallon so I opted not to go for one. Too much work unless you have sufficient live rock. Beautiful fishes though.