Mine and my friends are both still alive and completly healthy. Eating pellets no problem since day one!

I bought two and both would only eat pods. eventually one died, but the other one is fine. I think he might grab the odd brine shrimp I feed, but its tough to say as I rarely ever see him.

Mine was alive and healthy for the longest time. I had tons of pods (and flatworms) at the time, so he was a big fast mandarin. Unfortunately, my longnose butterfly came down with about every disease in the book at once in March and with working 18 hour days back then I couldn't do much to save it. The mandarin ended up picking up something from the butterfly during this ordeal and perished a few days later.