Setting up my reef got me thinking about whether i should add pods to my freshwater tanks. Does anyone do this?
Copepods?
- Thread starter Joshuakahan
- Start date
Yes. They're self-replenishing live food for fish. Helps clean the aquarium a bit too.
I collect freshwater copepods and Daphnia from my little backyard pond and introduce them to all my stocktanks in spring, as well as to my indoor tanks. They sometimes seem to establish colonies in the outdoor stocktanks that manage to persist throughout the summer. Indoors, they are typically eaten almost immediately in tanks with small fish; it's not so much an "introduction" as it is a "live feeding".
For gits'n'shiggles I have tried them indoors with large fish (i.e. too large to bother eating the the little guys) and while they seem to survive and do well, they vanish within a few weeks simply due to attrition during large water changes. I like water changes of 80-90% and copepods aren't exactly geniuses at avoiding the drain; removing 90% of their population at least weekly cuts down their numbers pretty fast.
For gits'n'shiggles I have tried them indoors with large fish (i.e. too large to bother eating the the little guys) and while they seem to survive and do well, they vanish within a few weeks simply due to attrition during large water changes. I like water changes of 80-90% and copepods aren't exactly geniuses at avoiding the drain; removing 90% of their population at least weekly cuts down their numbers pretty fast.
It’s definitely worth adding, but they don’t seem to last very long as others have mentioned. I have been trying to get a stable amphipod population in my tanks for years now with little success other than the ones in my canister filter.
I tried daphnia in my wolf fish’s tank thinking he wouldn’t eat something so small…they were gone by morning.
With enough surface to breed on, I would think copepods would make it, but the tank would probably have to function like a complete ecosystem (similar to a reef).
I tried daphnia in my wolf fish’s tank thinking he wouldn’t eat something so small…they were gone by morning.
With enough surface to breed on, I would think copepods would make it, but the tank would probably have to function like a complete ecosystem (similar to a reef).
When i kept fowlr I would always notice my dwarf angel would be quite happy when i added a fresh bottle of copepods to the tank. They inhabit and maintain the smallest spaces in LR that other macroinverts cant get into and provide food for them too of course.
Make sure to look closely at the bottles before buying as many of them have been improperly kept and full of mostly dead copepods on the bottom and some bottles are just plain skimped lol. a good bottle should have lots of active copepods swimming around.
Make sure to look closely at the bottles before buying as many of them have been improperly kept and full of mostly dead copepods on the bottom and some bottles are just plain skimped lol. a good bottle should have lots of active copepods swimming around.
Thanks, I’ve got some pretty good reef shops nearby, but I’ll check the bottles.
Have you ever tried to add pods to your freshwater setups? Sounds like from what the others are saying it’s tough to get them established
No, you don't want them. At least not true freshwater copepods from the wild and if you want to have fry in your tank.
I have a 12 page article here, unfortunately only in print and in German, that explains why having wild freshwater copepods in you tank is not a good idea
The main reasons are:
- the bacterial load that wild copepods often carry
- their potential to attack and kill small fish fry
- their lack of essential nutrients when kept for more than a few hours in the aquarium. In order to obtain their beneficial lipids, the copepods need a special algal diet which is very difficult to provide.
The author suggests using enriched brine shrimp nauplia, Daphnia or Rotifera instead, or if you really need copepods as food for certain specialized marine fish fry, and if you are able to feed the copepods properly, the breeding your own saltwater copepods.
I have a 12 page article here, unfortunately only in print and in German, that explains why having wild freshwater copepods in you tank is not a good idea
The main reasons are:
- the bacterial load that wild copepods often carry
- their potential to attack and kill small fish fry
- their lack of essential nutrients when kept for more than a few hours in the aquarium. In order to obtain their beneficial lipids, the copepods need a special algal diet which is very difficult to provide.
The author suggests using enriched brine shrimp nauplia, Daphnia or Rotifera instead, or if you really need copepods as food for certain specialized marine fish fry, and if you are able to feed the copepods properly, the breeding your own saltwater copepods.
Thanks, I’m not breeding anything. I was just thinking they might give the same benefits to fresh setup as they do for a reef. Sounds like I should pass
I don't expect they'd last in a tank, too many sucked into filters or siphoned out during water changes, but once I've got a good population in my outside tank I'll give it a try.
Looks like more like Daphnia than copepods