Some mandarins will adapt and eat live or frozen foods. The trouble with brine is that they have very low nutritional value unless they are "gut-loaded" with vitamin enriched foods. You can inprove your chance of sucess with a Mandarin by building "pod piles" in your aquarium. These are piles of rubble that the pods will find safety in and reproduce. Refugiums are another good way to improve the pod population and food supply. You should also avoid wrasses and other pod-eating species in your system since they will diminish the Mandarin's food supply.
None of this ensures success. The best approach is to wait until you find one at the LFS that will eat frozen foods and is not starving at the time.
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