Want to learn more about setting up your own culture for copepods and rotifers, creating an endless source of food for your tank?

Canada Copepods specializes in the aquaculture of zooplankton for use in the home aquarium. We use specialized equipment to sieve our cultures, ensuring that there is no cross-contamination between our cultures and our product. This means you are only putting in clean water, live zooplankton and some phytoplankton in your tank when you pour our bottles in, no excess nitrates or phosphates.

The best instructional guide to raising copepods and rotifers is Brine Shrimp Direct’s Guide. For full instructions refer to that guide.

You can culture your own zooplankton quite simply. Take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with a gallon of fresh saltwater (1.019-1.022), add our live zooplankton blend to the mix. Take the smallest air pump you can find and run just a bubble a second or so into the bucket. Pour in phytoplankton until the water is clearly green, and keep the culture fed by topping off the bucket with phytoplankton. Be sure to top off with fresh filtered water when it evaporates.

To harvest from your culture, pour a few cups through a sieve or a coffee filter, and rinse it with fresh water. Collect the contents of the sieve or coffee filter with fresh salt-water into a glass jar with lots of light and see how concentrated your culture is!