DT's Live Marine Phytoplankton

Live phytoplankton is an extremely important food for a great many animals that are maintained in reef aquariums.

DT’s Live Marine Phytoplankton is concentrated and cleaned to provide nutritious live phytoplankton without the contamination of excessive nutrients or metals from the culture media.

It is very rare for phytoplankton species to survive refrigerated storage. DT’s Plankton Farm only uses species that have been proven to survive refrigerated storage for the entire five month shelf life our “best if used by” date is based on.

Marine reef aquariums can be populated with a variety of phytoplankton feeding animals.

Although some of these animals may feed on preserved phytoplankton, some will reject dead phytoplankton or detritus as food and not consume it. Clams have been shown to reject nonliving partials, passing them instead as pseudo-feces.  Only live phytoplankton will be accepted by all phytoplankton feeding animals.

Feeding DT’s Live Marine Phytoplankton to your reef aquarium will greatly increase the population and nutritional quality of copepods and other zooplankton that will be available as food for stony corals.

Recommended usage - 3ml per 22G per day

( Shake it up at least weekly )

DT’s® Live Marine Copepods

Subtropical Harpacticoid sp.

Copepods that thrive in reef aquariums!

These subtropical Harpacticoid copepods are a warm water species that will develop a thriving population in reef aquariums. Copepods are an especially nutritious small prey item for many corals and small fish. This species has an adult size of about 900 microns.

Copepods feed on phytoplankton and are also an excellent scavenger, feeding on detritus of any kind. The best place for these copepods to reproduce and grow is in a refugium or aquarium.

It is our intention to provide a starter culture of copepods that will thrive in reef aquariums. This species was cultured at an average temperature of 82.5°F (28°C), so it is a species that will do very well in a reef tank.

These copepods are also very tolerant of cooler water and will do just fine in the 70’s, so they can be kept or cultured at normal room temperature.

Harpacticoid copepods have a life span of approximately 2 months. Some of the adults that are harvested will be near the end of their life span. There will also be eggs hatching and other individuals that will not easily be visible without the aid of magnification.

Simply add 3 drops of DT Live Phytoplankton daily for continued growth