Mandarins are a stunning fish to have in your home aquarium. However, unlike most saltwater fish, they have very specific dietary requirements, and they need to be kept in the right environment in order to thrive. On this page, you’ll find a full selection of the best copepods for mandarins that you can feed to this beautiful but notoriously picky fish.
Best Copepods for Mandarins
Best Copepods for Mandarins
AlgaGen ReefPODS Copepod Starter Kit
The AlgaGen ReefPODS™ Copepod Starter Kit (Buy Online) is perfect for those looking to provide the best food possible for their mandarins. This kit includes 1x AlgaGen ReefPODS Tisbe Live Aquacultured Copepods – 8oz, 1x AlgaGen PhycoPure Reef Blend – 8oz, and 1x AlgaGen ReefPODS Apocyclops Live Aquacultured Copepods – 8oz.
If you have a mandarin dragonette in your tank and are looking for the best food to feed them, then look no further. This kit includes three different types of copepods that will provide excellent food for these animals.
ReefPODS Tisbe is a live culture of the harpacticoid copepod Tisbe biminiensis which provides excellent food for mandarins, dragonettes, and seahorses. ReefPODS Apocyclops is a cyclopoid copepod that serves as an excellent food for mandarins that actively seek out prey on rocks and live sand.
The AlgaGen PhycoPure Reef Blend contains LIVE microalgae which can be used as a food source for copepods, brine shrimp, and zooplankton. It also can help a little with water quality by removing nitrates from the water column through photosynthesis, along with providing essential nutrients such as amino acids and vitamins to corals and other reef invertebrates.
5280 Pods, 10,560+ Live Marine Copepods Tisbe, Tigriopus, Apocyclops Mix
The Algae Barn Live Copepod Mix (Buy Online) contains three species of copepods that will help maintain a healthy environment for a mandarin fish. These copepods are perfect for finicky mandarin fish, and they are covered by a 100% Alive On Arrival Guarantee.
This mix of copepods is perfect for a picky mandarin fish since it contains three copepod species at a very affordable price.
Copepods also have an amazing ability to help keep tanks clean by consuming detritus and invasive algae naturally, and they will form an “Unseen Clean Up Crew” in your tank as they work hard to keep it free of debris.
That means feeding these marine copepods to your Mandarin Dragonets or any other finicky fish will not only keep them healthy and active, but it will also keep their environment healthy too! With this mix of three species, you’ll be able to provide the best possible diet for all of your picky marine fish.
AQUACULTURE NURSERY FARMS 200 Amphipods + 16oz Tisbe Pods (3000 +) Live Saltwater Amphipods
The Amphipods and Tisbe Pod Combo Pack (Buy Online) is the perfect live food for a mandarin fish. These are two of the best live food species for mandarins, and best of all they’re cultured in America and come with an Arrive Alive Guarantee. This combo pack contains 200 Live Amphipods and a 16oz Jar of Tisbe pods (3000+ pods).
Amphipods are one of the best live prey species for picky fish like mandarins and seahorses. And they will breed freely in a saltwater tank or refugium, so you won’t have to worry about your mandarin running out of food. That makes this combo pack a great choice if you want to keep your tank stocked with a fresh, healthy food source for a mandarin that won’t break the bank
Atlantic 3000+ Live copepods Tisbe biminiensis 8oz
Atlantic Live copepods Tisbe biminiensis (Buy Online) is one of the best copepods for mandarins that are having trouble swallowing large prey items. Tisbe biminiensis are the smallest copepods species ranging from 50-1000 µm in size, which makes them perfect for juvenile mandarins.
These tiny, self-replicating clean-up crew members will inoculate your saltwater tank and provide a great food source for picky eaters like seahorses, dragonets, and mandarins.
These live copepods arrive quickly, so you can start feeding them to your fish right away, and you’ll get lots of pods in each bottle at a great price point.
Copepods Mix 5 Types 6,000 Pods 16 oz Size. Tisbe Pods Acartia,Parvo,Pseudo,Apocyclops. Tisbe Biminiensis. Live Fish Food Mandarin
This Complete Copepod Mix (Buy Online) is an excellent food for mandarins. It contains 5 types of copepods including Tisbe, Acartia, Parvo, Pseudo, and Apocyclops. One 16oz bag portion contains 6,000 copepods which is enough copepods to seed a large 75+ gallon tank.
This copepod mix can be used to seed a refugium or live rock, and best of all feeding mandarins couldn’t be easier since this copepod mix covers all your live food needs in one convenient package.
Reef Nutrition Tigger Pods Live Copepods Food
Reef Nutrition Tigger-Pods (Buy Online) is the best live food for mandarins because they breed rapidly, and they can be easily grown at home in a Copepod Culture Reactor. They’re also attractive to a wide range of fish like mandarin dragonets, leopard wrasses, seahorses, and pipefish. This bottle is highly concentrated and contains approximately 3,000 copepods.
Nano Brine Shrimp – Live Baby Artemia – Algae Barn
Live Nano Brine Shrimp (Buy Online) is a great supplemental live food for mandarins. They’re rich in fat and protein, won’t reproduce in your tank, and their erratic movements will stimulate even the most finicky mandarin fish.
Zoo Med Can O’ Cyclops 3.2 Oz – Small Fish, Coral & Invert Food Cyclopeeze
Zoo Med Can O’ Cyclops (Buy Online) is the perfect food for small marine fish, invertebrates, corals, and nano shrimp. It’s also great for fry and small aquarium fish. This product is “cooked in the can” to lock in nutrients and has excellent protein content with low-fat levels.
Zoo Med Can O’ Cyclops can be a good substitute for live copepods because they’re fully hydrated making them more likely to be accepted by a mandarin.
If you can get your mandarin used to eating Zoo Med Cooked Cyclops they can be a convenient way to feed your fish without having to worry about them having enough live food, or going hungry when they don’t want to eat anything else. Plus, these copepods are very affordable, so you won’t need to worry about spending lots of money ordering live copepods for a mandarin.
Best Copepod Food
Two Little Fishies Marine Snow
Two Little Fishies Marine Snow (Buy Online) is the perfect food for feeding and maintaining a colony of filter-feeding marine invertebrates like copepods, phytoplankton, and zooplankton. It’s also great for coral, clams, shrimp, and other invertebrates in reef tanks.
Live Marine Phytoplankton – (x4) 8oz Bottles
This Live Marine Phytoplankton (Buy Online) is a copepod food culture that contains high levels of HUFAs (Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids), which include EPA & DHA, which are necessary for increased nutrition, faster growth, and higher survival rates of copepods in a refugium or main display tank.
Best Copepod Reactor
PhytoTank CL System – Copepod and Phytoplankton Culture Reactors – Poseidon Reef Systems
The PhytoTank CL System (Buy Online) is designed to be a completely self-sustaining system for growing copepods and phytoplankton. It includes everything you need to maintain a colony of both species, including two 3.5 liter reactors that are divided between one for copepods and another for phytoplankton.
Included in this kit is the PodNest which is a combined aerator and habitat that helps maintain thriving copepod colonies. It also comes with a photosynthetic reactor with an integrated LED light that provides uniform light to maximize the growth rates of your phytoplankton cultures.
This kit also comes with all the necessary hardware needed to produce an endless supply of copepods, including power supplies, dimmers, splitters, sieves, etc., so you can get started right away
Best Copepod Habitat
IceCap Pod Habitat
Copepods need care and protection too! They’re often eaten by predators before they even get a chance to fully develop and reproduce. With the IceCap Pod Habitat (Buy Online) you can maintain a self-sustaining copepod population that won’t need to be replenished on a regular basis.
The IceCap Pod Habitat is the perfect solution for those who want to cultivate a healthy copepod colony. Just add this habitat to your refugium or hide it in your tank, and it will begin attracting copepods and provide them with a safe place to live and reproduce.
