i was wondering if i put a small aquafuge w/ the attached protein skimmer on my 29g biocube if it would keep a mandarin sufficiently supplied with pods? and is $150 a good deal for that?

No. Definitely not.

+1 for a few days maybe.
A dragonet in that small of a tank needs to be taught to take prepared foods. The fuge would be useful in the transition period, however.

i didnt mean solely pods, i would be feeding mysis and bloodworms along with them.

Then yes. You don't need pods if you keep up with frozen feeding.

how many times a day would you reccomend feeding frozen?

I know people get by feeding once a day. I would feed it as often as possible to fatten it up, and then cut it down as long as it stays healthy. Heres a nice link, if you can get it to work:
http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

if you can train him, cool. I trained my Red Scooter Blenny to eat shrimp and silver sides - trying to get him to eat pellets because thawing frozen everyday is a pain. Im setting up a coepod farm so that I can add more dragonettes then the fish will eat like in nature and I'll only have to dose a couple times a week...

i kept a mandarin in a 29g with ~25lbs of lr and a small aquafuge for like 3 years. the fish died during a week-long power outage one winter
my answer: YES you can do it

coralline what else did you feed it other than the pods?

+1

How about keeping a mandarin in a 29 gallon with a 10-15 gallon fuge?

You asked about keeping supplied with pods, and without making some pod farms, the answer is probably not. But, its would probably work for supplemental feeding if you trained him to eat frozen.