If you wish to maintain your pod population, feed a couple of teaspoons of Phytofeast every day or so. I keep a mandarin quite nicely in a 52 by supplementing food for the pods---early on I had to supplement pods as well, but now the mandarin seems to be making a nice living on the pods that are reproducing.
A way to have dragonettes (the class that mandarins and scooters belong to) is to establish a refugium and feed it. Then even at a younger age, your tank should be able to sustain them---if, and this is the ethical if---you're willing to undertake supplementing bought pods if you should run short. The problem with young tanks is exactly what I ran into, with a 3 month old tank. Right around the time I got a mandarin, I also had cyano, which lowered the pod population drastically. Several months of supplemented pods, daily Phytofeast and a refugium later, I can say my mandarin is fat and active, and I'm considering a second dragonette. But young tanks are prone to crashes that do in the pods, and you have to decide whether you're ready to undertake the expense of supplements for your dragonettes.