My tank is currently 9 months old, 55 gallon no sump. When I was doing the initial setup and cycling I did lots of research and came across some of the same info around Pods. As I really wanted a Mandarin I decided to seed the tank with pods as soon as my tank cycled and then added another round about a month later as I wanted there to be as large a population as I could get before I started adding things that would eat them.
I assumed that I would add additional pods occasionally and possibly even start culturing my own since that seems like something I would be interested in.
At around month 3 I could see hundreds of pods on the glass and rocks everyday and assumed there were thousands more hidden in the rocks and sand. At the same time there was a very skinny, not so healthy looking, Mandarin at my LFS. I decided I would see if my tank could help him and if I needed to start up my own culture I would.
He fattened up in the matter of just a week or 2 in my tank and is still super happy. I still haven't added any more pods and I've had him for 6 months now and when I look in the tank I still see just as many pods as I did when I introduced him.
I may still at some point need to supplement or start my own culture to keep up, but I think getting pods in the tank early and letting them build up to very large numbers at the beginning was one of the best things I did when starting this tank.