gist41980

Over the past few weeks I have been attempting to boost my copepod population. I have a Blue Mandarin Dragonet and I want to make sure there is always enough pods for him to feast on. I have a refugium but it has not been absolutely buzzing with copepods. I should note that I do have a large population of amphipods both in the display tank and refugium.

I decided that I would seek out a few sources of copepods to provide some diversity and to determine which source provided me with the most bang for the buck.

The three sources were:
DT’s® Live Marine Copepods from a LFS
AlgaGen ReefPods Tisbe from an online vendor
Reef Science Plankton - Live Rotifer & Copepod Culture from http://joeknowsreefs.com/reef-science

Impressions:
I bought DT’s® Live Marine Copepods at a local fish store. The store had the containers open to the air (as recommended) and I could defiantly see some of the critters darting here and there. I took them home and slowly added water from my tank to the container over the course of 30 minutes to help acclimate them. I then added them to my refugium. I did notice an up-tick in pod activity within a day or two of adding them. In the end I was satisfied with the product.

I bought AlgaGen ReefPods Tisbe from an online vendor on a Tuesday, hoping they would arrive on Friday. Due to a railcar derailment they did not arrive until the following Monday. Temperatures dropped into the 40’s in the area during the weekend while the pods were in transit. Once I received them I did not notice any activity within the bottle, even after it warmed up. I could see some pods floating around, but did not witness any movement. I contacted the vendor and was told that they could survive such temperatures and as long as the bottle did not have a rotten-egg smell the copepods were alive. So I acclimated them and added them to my refugium. I did not notice much of an increase in pod activity after adding them. I was disappointed due to the shipping circumstances. I cannot draw a fair conclusion on the quality of the product. One fair observation I feel I can make is that this product seemed to have the smallest concentration of copepods per purchase.

I bought Reef Science Plankton - Live Rotifer & Copepod Culture from http://joeknowsreefs.com/reef-science . I had read a suggestion someone made to someone else on a forum so I went to the website to check it out. I bought into what they had to say and figured it was worth a shot. I received the package a couple days after ordering and everything looked to be in good order. The first thing that I noticed was the amount of activity in the bag. I could see numerous copepods skipping around. I poured the bag into a container to acclimate them. At that point I could tell that there was a much higher concentration of pods in this product (in addition to the Rotifers which I considered a bonus) versus the other two products. I noticed quite a bit more copepod activity in the refugium and in the display tank almost immediately. After about a week I have a buzzing population in the refugium and have noticed significantly more copepods in the display tank. Overall this product exceeded my expectations and I am very happy with my decision to give this one a shot.

The next time I am in the market for copepods Reef Science Plankton - Live Rotifer & Copepod Culture from http://joeknowsreefs.com/reef-science will be my first stop.