Copepods are now shipped in plastic pouches.
What Are Copepods?
Live copepods are small crustaceans that can be used as live food for saltwater aquarium fishes, corals and other invertebrates.
Who Should Use Live Copepods?
Almost any marine aquarium will benefit from the addition of copepods, but tanks with mandarin fish, anthias and seahorses may well require the regular addition of copepods for optimal results. Aquarists that maintain refugium as a part of their overall system should definitely add copepods directly to their refugium on a regular basis.
How To Use Live Copepods
We ship our copepods in a 100ml bottle or pouch. A pouch is a sealed plastic wallet that contains your live food and fits through your letterbox. Pouches are ideal if you are not going to be home when the postman arrives. Two 100ml pouches will fit in a small jiffy bag.
To add them to your system, simply pour the bottle or pouch directly into the aquarium or use a sieve witch is available as an option above if you require one. If a refugium is present, it may be best to add at least some of the copepods to the refugium where they will not be eaten. If no refugium is present, you may add all of the copepods directly to the sump (consider shutting off the protein skimmer for a time if one is present). If the system does not have a refugium or a sump, consider adding at least some of the copepods when the aquarium lights are off.
Which Live Copepods Do You Stock?
We stock Harpacticoids copepods (Tigriopus Californicus) which are the most commonly available copepods on the market today. They are substrate-dwelling copepods (“benthic" copepods). They feed on micro algae, detritus and even flake fish food. Some harpacticoids are cannibalistic and will eat other copepods if no other food source is present in the aquarium. Because of its size and abundance, this species of copepod (Tigriopus Californicus) is garded as the insect of the sea. This creature is generally very small, from 1-3 mm in size as adults.
They are cylindrically shaped, and have a segmented body (head, thorax, abdomen) though no noticeable division between body regions (Powlik 1966). Each segment of the body has a pair of legs. They use their 'legs' to propel themselves through the water in short rapid jerks. They have 2 pairs of long feathered antennae, a chitin us exoskeleton and a single eye in the middle of their head, this simple eye can only differentiate between light and dark.
Why Can't I See Live Copepods In My Aquarium?
Over time, the population of the copepods in your aquarium will decline as they are grazed by the corals, anemones, fish and shrimp in the tank.
How Do Live Copepods Help My Aquarium?
As well as being an excellent food source for finicky fish eaters, they are "detritivores", meaning they will scavenge leftover fish food, fish poop, and bacteria in the tank. They can help control the water quality by eating the unused food which can eventually lead to bacteria overload in your tank.
Live Copepod Culturing: It's easy to culture your own copepods, we have some information available here on our support area.
