Live copepods for sale: Tisbe, Tigriopus, Apocyclops, and mixed pods
Copepods are tiny crustaceans at the base of the reef food web, and a healthy population is one of the easiest ways to add natural food and biodiversity to a saltwater aquarium. Our live copepods are cultured in-house at Top Shelf Aquatics under our Reef Genetics line and harvested fresh each week. Each 8 oz bottle holds 100+ live adults plus nauplii and is sized to seed or feed an aquarium up to 40 gallons.
What are copepods?
Copepods are among the most abundant animals in the ocean, and in an aquarium they live in rockwork, sand, macroalgae, and the water column. They graze on phytoplankton, bacterial films, and detritus, and in turn become food for fish and corals. Reefers mostly work with two groups: harpacticoid copepods such as Tisbe and Tigriopus, which tend to cling to and crawl over rock, glass, and algae, and cyclopoid copepods such as Apocyclops, which swim freely through the water column. A tank with both feeds fish that hunt surfaces and fish that pick food from open water.
Choosing a copepod species
- Tisbe (Tisbe biminiensis): a small, benthic copepod that hides in rockwork, sand, and macroalgae and reproduces steadily. It is the best choice for building a long-term population in a refugium or a coral-heavy reef.
- Tigriopus (Tigriopus californicus): the largest species we culture, red-orange in color, with a jerky stop-and-go swim that triggers a feeding response. A favorite for feeding mandarins and other dragonets, pipefish, seahorses, and wrasses.
- Apocyclops (Apocyclops panamensis): a free-swimming cyclopoid that colonizes quickly and stays in the water column, where anthias, mandarins, and filter-feeding corals can reach it. It tolerates a wide salinity range and is widely used for rearing marine fish larvae.
- Mixed copepods (Tisbe and Apocyclops): both groups in one bottle, so pods spread across the rockwork and the water column. A good default for seeding a new tank.
How to add copepods to your tank
- Turn off pumps, powerheads, the UV sterilizer, and the protein skimmer for 10–20 minutes while you add pods, so they settle instead of being pulled into equipment.
- Dose at night or after the lights go out, when most fish are resting and less likely to eat the whole bottle at once.
- Release pods into the refugium or near the base of live rock and macroalgae, where they can find cover right away.
- Feed live phytoplankton one to three times a week so the population has food to grow and reproduce. Shop phytoplankton and other cultured foods in aquacultured live feeds.
Copepods for mandarin dragonets
Mandarins and other dragonets pick at copepods from morning to night, and many never fully switch to prepared foods. Before adding one, give the tank time to build a large, self-sustaining pod population, ideally with a refugium or rubble zone where pods can breed out of reach. Keep adding copepods regularly after the fish arrives, since one hungry dragonet can outpace the natural population of a smaller tank.
Building a self-sustaining pod population
Copepods thrive where they have food and cover. A refugium with macroalgae such as chaeto gives them a protected breeding area, and porous rock and rubble do the same in the display. Regular phytoplankton feeding keeps the population growing between doses. Equipment matters too: pods that drift into skimmers, UV sterilizers, and filter socks are lost, which is why flow and filtration go off during dosing. Many reefers also keep a small home culture going with live phytoplankton so they always have pods on hand.
Shop related live foods
See every in-house live food in Reef Genetics, compare phytoplankton and pods in aquacultured live feeds, or shop coral food for target feeding.
