swishyfishys,
I'm not saying that this is right, but, I keep a mandarin in my 50 gal reef. I have about 70lbs of live rock. 30lbs of the rock is Florida aquacultured rock. I'm not sure this makes a difference but between the florida rock, the live gulf-view live sand and feeding with DT's, my tank is full of pods. My mandarin has been with me since Dec. 02, and is much larger today than it was about 6 months ago. I waited until the tank was about 6-8 months old, and my pod population was stable before adding the mandarin. I also do not have any other fish that compete with tha mandarin for pods. I just wanted to let you know that there are people with healthy mandarins in tanks smaller than usually recommended.
Brian