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Saltwater Aquarium Guide Reef-keeping magazine
Fish & Invertebrates

Copepod Culture: Feeding Mandarins and Boosting Reef Biodiversity

How to set up a 5-gallon copepod culture to feed mandarin gobies, sea horses, and pod-dependent corals.

Copepod photographed under a microscope against a black background
Photo: Andrei Savitsky, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

Copepods are the foundation of natural reef food webs. A 5-gallon culture supplies a 75-gallon reef indefinitely with live pods for mandarins, dragonettes, and finicky eaters.

Equipment

  • 5-gallon bucket with lid
  • Air pump + airstone
  • Starter culture (Tigriopus or Tisbe)
  • Live phytoplankton for feed