Culturing, freezing, and selling pods, or pod-energy equivalent pellets

[ichthyogeek]

^this. In the hobby, we have fish that rely mainly on the pods in the rockwork for sustenance (for example the very colorful dragonets). We also have ways of making frozen food from some of the smallest animals out there (like rotifers). So why are the major food companies not selling frozen blocks of Tisbe, Tigriopus, or whatever? Hikari's amphipods, according to FusedJaw's forums, are approximately 2-3 times bigger than reef amphipods, making them good food for larger fish, but not suitable for picky eaters like seahorses. Is there a way to mass culture, flash freeze, and sell common pods like reef amphipods, munnid isopods, certain species of harpacticoid copepods (such as Tisbe and Euterpina) and calanoid copepods (Pseudodiaptomus, or Moina possibly)? Cyclop-eeze is nice, but there have to be other species of pods that are easy to mass culture as well, right?

Lacking the above, why has there been no research to find the nutritional contents of certain pod species as well? Whoever invents the pellet that mimics copepod nutrition could make a fortune off of it, selling it to wrasse, dragonet, possibly goby owners, similar to how Hikari's Massivore replicates goldfish nutrition.

 

[jayball]

The PE Calanus and argent cyclopeeze are not cultured. They are collected from lakes.