I have a mandarin from Biota, in QT it was nibbling at small pellets and frozen but in my 90 its the pod population that is sustaining him. Mainly as getting him to eat pellets etc before his tankmates get to them is tricky, I'm currently training him to eat from a feeder to make this easier.
I add pods once every fortnight and in your volume you would definately need to be supplementing the tank with pods. they do recognise pellets etc as food but will spend every other waking minute hunting. If you are keen to support captive-breeding then I can highly recommend them and whilst they are a step easier than wild caught in that you don't need to train them to recognise other foodstuffs really in terms of requirements you should view these the same as for wild caught fish in terms of reliance on pods etc as this is still their main source of nutrition. If your happy to put the extra effort of culturing/buying your own pods and target feeding etc then I would say go for it.
The biota ones are absolutely tiny (3.5cm) so be aware you'll need 0.5mm pellets and appropriate frozen food such as red plankton, the goal is to get mine feeding on reef paste too. I also got an equally tiny Biota coral beauty which is also a cool little fish with amazing colouration and some nice zoa's from them so I can vouch for the quality of their livestock.
Nick
