Are Rotifers in Copepods a SCAM

[Reef By Steele Verified Sponsor]

I was reading on a thread a while back and someone had made a comment about copepods products with rotifers in them. This person was making the case that they were added to enhance the appearance of the pod quantity. While I do not doubt that this may be true for some people who sell pods, the real question is are the rotifers beneficial in our systems? And if someone adds rotifers to their product, how is it done and what effect on density of copepods.

First let’s look at whether rotifers are a good addition to your aquarium. I for one am a proponent of consistently adding rotifers to my aquariums. This wasn’t always the case. Honestly when I first got into the hobby I didn’t even know rotifers, copepods and amphipods existed. My first aquarium experience with zooplankton was discovering little alien looking critters in my sump and assuming it was some sort of parasite, until I was able to travel to a LFS where someone identified them as amphipods. When we reentered the reefing hobby, I was reintroduced to copepods as the mandarin goby (dragonet) has always been one of my must have fish.

We first became aware of rotifers when our clown pair started laying clutches of eggs over and over again. I decided we should try to raise them (lot of work). I got online and once again landed on my favorite saltwater aquarium forum www.reef2reef.com.

And there I learned that rotifers were the preferred first food for clown fry and BBS Baby Brine Shrimp were second. We quickly ordered rotifers and a system to culture them and our journey began. Out of the first clutch we captured about 50 fry and got 2 to survive. Was our only successful hatch, but I think we would have done better but no microscope and I think my rotifer culture crashed.

Got it up and running again, but too late for the last clutch we tried, but thought we would do more, so I went back in to the worlds best forum and asked “Are rotifers good for anything other than raising fry”. Some of the legends on here spoke up that rotifers provide a nutritional boost to corals, filter feeders and many fish species, so I started dosing them into our reefs.

Upon further study I discovered that rotifers may actually prefer cyano bacteria to other food sources and ran a test in our 20 gallon tank in which if I cleaned it and hyper dosed rotifers the cyano was held at bay for a longer duration. And I feel they would eradicate it if I continued to dose, but determined a filter upgrade would be needed.

It turns out that rotifers can play a role in reef tanks both as micro CUC (Clean Up Crew) and a solid food source for most of the life forms in our aquariums.



Now to discuss the validity of people augmenting their copepods with rotifers. We, as stated above, believe that rotifers are highly beneficial for our reefs. But when we moved our culturing from hobbyists selling on R2R to an active business venture and became an R2R sponsor, I started to really study not only what made up our products, but what would become our competition and also reefers responses regarding copepods and phytoplankton. I saw places where people complained about density and addition of rotifers specifically. Generally stating (whether true or not) that adding rotifers diluted the pod density.

Taking that and my belief that the rotifers are beneficial, we developed a technique to provide rotifers without compromising the copepod density. Then we offered our pods in with or without rotifers under different names. For example our Blended Pod Buffet and Premium Pod Buffet are the same product with Premium having rotifers. However we don’t mix 8 Oz of pods with 8 oz or Rotifers for a 50/50 mix, but rather developed a way to add them with basically zero water. Then we add just a bit of phytoplankton so the rotifers don’t starve in transit as they require daily or multiple daily feedings to avoid a crash. We do this by harvesting and prepping these products as Blended extreme, and once the blended is bottled we take a portion of the same mix, then sieve rotifers and the only water added would be the small amount used to rinse the rotifers from the sieve.

So if you took a bottle of Blended pods and Premium pods they will have roughly an identical amount of copepods in each (roughly as every bottle even in the same mix can be slightly different) but the premium has the added benefit of rotifer. While there may be people who use rotifers as a substitute for pod density, a solid and reputable vendor would not. This is just another example of what we refer to when we say-

EXPERIENCE THE STEELE ADVANTAGE!​

Check out our targeted copepod buffets here.

https://reefbysteele.com/collections/copepods-1

WE GOT THE REEF!​

 

[Rocks reef]

Great write up and information!

Rotifers are beneficial to a reef just like copepods. Many corals feed on rotifers.

 

[Reef By Steele Verified Sponsor]

Great write up and information!

Rotifers are beneficial to a reef just like copepods. Many corals feed on rotifers.

Thanks,

Yes, when I first got into reefing, it was all about lights, additives and water changes. While most corals are photosynthetic and produce the majority of their nutritional needs from the zooxanthellae cells within their tissue, I have found that corals can be healthier, more vibrant and grow better with additional whether that be commercial products with amino acids like fuel and reef roids, or more natural foods such as live rotifers, copepods and phytoplankton. I have switched from the commercial products to all natural live products, because I want my reef to be as natural and ocean like as I can possibly make it. There are a lot of great products out there, but the one thing I have seen consistently is most of the “products” raise nutrients. I love the fact that the natural products we use actually reduce the nutrients making maintenance easier and less frequent.

 

[Rocks reef]

I absolutely agree and that is why I get my copepods, rotifers and phyto from you! I stopped using commercially produced foods shortly after setting up my system. I was browsing this forum, say your ad... and...well, I am now a repeat customer!

 

[Reef By Steele Verified Sponsor]

I absolutely agree and that is why I get my copepods, rotifers and phyto from you! I stopped using commercially produced foods shortly after setting up my system. I was browsing this forum, say your ad... and...well, I am now a repeat customer!

Wow, that is awesome. Fun thing about R2R, unless someone uses their real name, I have no clue who I am talking with. No idea you were our customer, but thrilled at the revelation. Thank you for your support, it means the world to us. @Ocean_Queenie and I are always excited when we here from or meet (at RAP) our customers.

Thanks
Kent and Sherry

 

[Troylee]

What role if any would freeze dried rotifiers provide? I see them for sale on sites and was curious?

 

[Reef By Steele Verified Sponsor]

What role if any would freeze dried rotifiers provide? I see them for sale on sites and was curious?

The best answer is that none of our tank inhabitants eat freeze dried in the ocean. However that is also my attempt at humor and to avoid hypocrisy, our tank inhabitants don’t eat pellets, flakes, frozen, a or dried nori which we personally use many of those, just not flakes.

Seriously, freeze dried rotifers are touted to be similar in nutrition maintaining their 60% by weight protein, but amino acids, and vitamins take at least some hit in the process. However just like any processed foods we feed our tanks, any uneaten portions will deteriorate and raise nitrates and phosphates. The freeze dried will do nothing to help with any type of algae control. It is also dependent on flow and current to reach anything that would benefit from it.

Live foods whether rotifers, copepods and amphipods in any reasonable system will reproduce, providing more benefit and food than what was originally added. A cup of dense rotifers can become millions in just a few days of high density feeding and will reproduce in the thousands in an aquarium before either running short of food or being consumed. The same is true of copepods and somewhat with amphipods as they create lots of offspring but much longer life cycle taking 6-7 weeks to reach full size.

So nothing against freeze dried, I just believe that live has advantages that freeze dried cannot provide.

 

[Troylee]

Yeah, for sure… I was thinking more along the lines of coral food.. not so much algae control..

 

[Reef By Steele Verified Sponsor]

Yeah, for sure… I was thinking more along the lines of coral food.. not so much algae control..

Slightly less nutritious but don’t know that it is a bunch. The possibility of raising nutrients is the largest drawback, just try not to over feed. I pretty much over feed as my wife does not want our fish hungry.

 

[D-Nak]

To address the title of this thread, I don't think it's a scam per se, since it's always a "buyer beware" scenario. The buyer has to understand (educate him/her/themself) the differences in rotifers and various types of copepods. In many cases, rotifers will typically outcompete most copepods.

In other words, if left alone and only fed phyto, the population of a mixed batch will yield a high level of rotifers compared to copepods. I think it's worth mentioning again what was stated in a post above:

"A cup of dense rotifers can become millions in just a few days of high density feeding and will reproduce in the thousands in an aquarium before either running short of food or being consumed. The same is true of copepods and somewhat with amphipods as they create lots of offspring but much longer life cycle taking 6-7 weeks to reach full size."

So, in terms of use case, feeding an aquarium with a mixed batch is totally fine. However, if someone is trying to raise their own copepods, it's best to buy them as individual species (never with any rotifers mixed in) since they have different care requirements, and their rate of reproduction varies.

 

[Reef By Steele Verified Sponsor]

To address the title of this thread, I don't think it's a scam per se, since it's always a "buyer beware" scenario. The buyer has to understand (educate him/her/themself) the differences in rotifers and various types of copepods. In many cases, rotifers will typically outcompete most copepods.

In other words, if left alone and only fed phyto, the population of a mixed batch will yield a high level of rotifers compared to copepods. I think it's worth mentioning again what was stated in a post above:

"A cup of dense rotifers can become millions in just a few days of high density feeding and will reproduce in the thousands in an aquarium before either running short of food or being consumed. The same is true of copepods and somewhat with amphipods as they create lots of offspring but much longer life cycle taking 6-7 weeks to reach full size."

So, in terms of use case, feeding an aquarium with a mixed batch is totally fine. However, if someone is trying to raise their own copepods, it's best to buy them as individual species (never with any rotifers mixed in) since they have different care requirements, and their rate of reproduction varies.

Absolutely true. Any vendor who sends single species for culturing with any rotifers in it is not doing the customer a favor. Rotifers will clear the water of Phyto in a day which isn’t any good for the pods.