Raising Copepods

KotaDVM

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We currently have a green mandarin in our experimental 10 gallon tank and are researching raising copepods for her instead of buying bottles at the pet store. I have been doing some research on refugiums, but has anyone had experience with raising copepods?
 
I've never tried to ranch copepods up as food, nor marine copepods, but most of my career when I was a biologist involved working with them in mixed small-pond or puddle communities and I've certainly grown a gazillion of them over the years.

So, to the extent that culture methods transfer from fresh to salt water, I'd suggest trying to grow them in a somewhat mixed culture (at least in fw, and I believe it's true in salt too, the young stages are all carnivorous even in species with herbivorous adults). The 'cleaner' and more single-species you try to keep a fw copepod culture, the less well the culture does.

On occasions when I needed a bunch, I usually figured my best bet was to set up a number of cultures and figure that only the ones that got off and running the best would I carry onward.

Dunno about temperature/light etc, I expect they're a whole lot different for marine vs the copepods I've known, hopefully someone else can help there.

Good luck,

Pat
 

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