What are the benefit of copepods in your marine tank?
Copepods are very beneficial in your tank for many reasons, but two of the most popular reasons for using copepods in your tank is that it will meet the demands of specialized eaters, and it will also take care of unwanted algae growth that can become a nuisance, and it controls detritus build up.
Copepods have the capability to reach high population density and transfer nutrients and food energy into marine/aquatic ecosystems from primary bacterial producers higher up in the food chain.
This make them pretty much important, to critically important, in marine/aquatic ecosystems.
Harpacticoids and Cyclopoids are the two most common type of Copepod groups that works well in aquaria.
Harpacticoids are the scavengers and Cyclopoids the zooplanktonic life food.
Copepods dominates the zooplankton, ocean wide.
Copepods are important in the role that they play by acting as an intermediate between phytoplankton and animals higher up in the chain, such as fish. It was found by a Marine Ecologist, that pressures such as competition for food, space and environmental instability can actually trigger the increase of copepod diversity in any given environment.
A CLOSER LOOK?
So to make it easily understandable, copepods, across the ocean and in marine/aquaria settings, serve as ecologically vital intermediate food links in food chains.
Copepods are minutely small flea like looking creatures, and is usually less than a few millimeters in length. Copepods have a large head, a tapered body shape and have four simple walking/swimming appendages. They typically have elongated antennae.
Due to the fact that Copepods are so small, they generally are only seen when they swim around or shoot over a rocky surface, as they are exceptionally lively animals.
Marine Aquarist, are increasingly becoming more aware of the benefit of this little animal in their tanks, by realizing Copepods increase the health of a captive environment. They have therefor become the most common pod used in tanks.
KEEPING THINGS CLEAN
It has become pretty clear why Copepods have become the best thing that happened to Marine Aquaria keeping, seeing as they eat up the stuff in the tank you as a reef keeper don’t want. Why would you put yourself through time consuming gravel cleaning and glass scraping, when you can just add these miraculous little animals.
They will settle into their new environment and start to reproduce immediately, providing all conditions in your tank is correct for them to do so.
Your fish and other aquarium animals will prey on them, but in time, a stage will be reached where population size stabilizes.
Should you pick up that the cleaning performance of your pods is less than perfect, you can increase the population by adding more Copepods, or you can feed them Phytoplankton.
Re-seeding of pods is recommended.
CONCLUSION
Once you get used to your Copepod population doing so much feeding and also cleaning your tank, you will realize how much you need them, and wonder why it took you so long to get them.
Your tank basically need them, along with other care taking, to flourish.
That is why REEFMAGIC is here. Not only to supply you with the product, but to help you solve a problem. Place a repeat order with us, and keep your tank at a level it should be.
