Live Copepods – 80ml

Bring Your Reef to Life with Live Copepods

Live Copepods are tiny aquatic crustaceans that form an important part of the natural marine food web, providing a valuable live food source for many reef aquarium inhabitants.

Unlike prepared foods, copepods remain alive within the aquarium, encouraging fish to hunt and graze naturally throughout the reef.

Natural Live Food

The constant movement of live copepods encourages natural hunting and feeding behaviour, making them particularly useful for fish that naturally spend much of their day searching rockwork for tiny prey.

They can also be useful when trying to encourage newly introduced, shy or selective fish to begin feeding.

Excellent for Mandarin Dragonets

Copepods are particularly important for species such as Mandarin Dragonets, which naturally spend much of their time hunting tiny crustaceans amongst reef rock.

Other small and plankton-feeding marine fish may also readily hunt copepods as part of a varied feeding regime.

Aquariums containing heavy copepod feeders may require regular additions to help replenish the population.

Build Your Reef's Natural Food Web

Not every copepod added to your aquarium will necessarily be eaten immediately.

Some can move into your rockwork, substrate and refugium where, under suitable conditions, they may establish and reproduce, creating an ongoing source of natural prey within the aquarium.

Adding copepods to a refugium can be particularly useful because it provides an area where populations can become established away from constant fish predation.

More Than Just Fish Food

Copepods form part of the microfauna found within healthy reef ecosystems. Once established, they occupy the rockwork, substrate and other protected areas of the aquarium and contribute to the biodiversity of the system.

This makes live copepods particularly interesting for reef keepers looking to develop a more diverse and natural aquarium ecosystem rather than simply adding another prepared food.

Why Add Live Copepods?

• Natural live food for marine aquariums
• Encourages hunting and natural feeding behaviour
• Particularly valuable for Mandarin Dragonets
• Useful for many small and plankton-feeding fish
• Can help tempt selective or newly introduced fish to feed
• Can be added to the display aquarium or refugium
• May establish and reproduce in suitable reef systems
• Helps increase microfauna diversity
• Excellent addition to established reef aquariums
• Convenient 80ml pack

Feeding & Introduction

Live copepods can be introduced into the main aquarium or refugium.

If your aim is to establish a population rather than provide an immediate feed, introducing some of the copepods into protected areas or a refugium gives them a better opportunity to settle and reproduce away from active predators.

For aquariums containing fish that consume large quantities of copepods, populations should be monitored and replenished when required.

80ml pack

Tiny crustaceans. Natural live food. A more living reef.