Copepods

Description

Marine copepods are a tiny crustacean that are abundant in natural reefs. They are an excellent food source for fish and invertebrates including corals.

Copepods keep well provided they are kept cool. Store the bags unopened in a fridge until you use them.

Here are Cornwall Aquatics we get a new batch of copepods almost every week of the year. This ensures that you are getting freshest live food.

Our live food deliveries usually arrive on a Thursday or Friday each week. As soon as they arrive, we put the food into our fridge until they go out for delivery. We aim to fulfil live food orders within Cornwall as quickly as possible.

If stored properly, copepods will keep for one to two weeks.

Adding ‘pods’ to your aquarium

Copepods can be added to the aquarium complete with the water they are supplied in. If you prefer, you can filter them through a very fine net and add just the animals.

Best added in numbers – at least one bag per 50-70 litres. In these numbers it is likely that some will escape into the live rock and live. This is very beneficial because they help to clean up the tank.

Copepods can even breed in aquariums too. It takes around 4-6 weeks for pods to breed.

To give them the best chance of survival in your reef, float the bag for 20 minutes before pouring them in. This will give them a chance to get up to temperature without having too much of a shock!

Keeping a good population of pods in a marine tank is a great way to boost fish and invertebrate health.

Copepods need feeding too! If your pods aren’t thriving it might mean that they are starving. In order to keep the pod population strong, it is best to feed live phytoplankton. Your corals and other life in the aquarium will also massively benefit from phytoplankton being added.

Only feed copepods to marine aquariums.