How to Breed Copepods at Home
Copepods, a group of small crustaceans found in the fresh water and sea, are main source of food for many fishes and invertebrates. Therefore, you can breed them at home in order to use as a live food source for the fishes in your beautiful marine aquarium. Breeding copepods at home is a healthy activity to engage yourself. Moreover, you can start a profitable business of copepods, supplying them to fish farms, fish breeders and the shops containing aquariums. They are quite easy to breed as there are numerous effortless ways to go about it.
Things Required:
– Breeding tank – about10-gallon
– Tape Water
– Two aquarium air pumps
– Air hoses
– Tank lid with holes for the air hoses
– Phytoplankton
– Male and female copepods
Instructions
-
1
Take a 10-gallon water tank and set it in one of the rooms of your house with moderate temperature with about 68 to 77 °F. Make sure that the room, especially the tank doesn’t receive direct sunlight.
-
2
Now, put together the air hoses to the air pumps of the tank, placing one of the hose-air pump set at the opposite ends of the tank.
-
3
Dispense some dechlorinated water, mixture of salt and seawater strength, into the tank. Otherwise, you can dechlorinate the tap water yourself. All you have to do is, pour some tap water into a medium bucket and leave it in an open air for the next 24 hours.
-
4
Once you add the dechlorinate water to the tank, leave it for the next few days in order to settle down properly.
-
5
Now place the copepod starter culture along with phytoplankton in the dechlorinate water to turn the water slightly or dark green. You can purchase the phytoplankton from your nearest aquarium supply stores.
-
6
Set the tank’s lid on the top and run the air hoses through the holes in the lid.
-
7
Adjust the air flow rate of your breeding tank until you find the large water bubbles rising slowly from the air hoses. Bubbles mounting after every one seconds is good to go.
-
8
It is the time to shift the male and female copepods into the tank. You will notice them breeding right away. The maturation from egg to adult can take 10 to 12 days. Enjoy an unremitting population of your copepods.
