How To Cope
Well well well, we have another new (and obviously outstanding) new food for you from Nutramar. Of course, we're already using it here at Quality Marine, in fact, we've been using it for many months before you even heard of it. We're talking about the new Liquid Feed – Natural Copepods. Unlike the Nutramar Tigrio, this is not a live suspension, and that's meaningful in a couple ways. One is obviously that you can't seed a system with them, but on the plus side, everything in this bottle is food, even the liquid.
Per the name, there's obviously copepods of multiple different sizes, from 0.5mm up to 1.8mm. The suspension is also full of a red plankton (Calanus sp.) crustacean derivatives, stabilizers and water. It's all food. The Calanus is a food for pretty much everything in your tank, and as the added benefit of being an attraction, which is also the role that the crustacean derivatives play here. This means everything in the bottle should be treated as food, and take some care not to overdose it, which could cause nutrient spikes.
While pretty much everything eats copepods, Nutramar Liquid Feed – Natural Copepods is a picture-perfect chow for things like Dragonettes, Seahorses, Pipefish, Macropharyngodon & Anampses Wrasses and just about anything else that takes small bites and is notoriously picky. Your filter feeders will also like it, and it can be target fed to them and to your more sedentary / reclusive fish. The other way to feed it is to dose the whole display. No matter how you choose to feed it, shake it like a Polaroid picture before you use it. If you opt for the system dosing method, use 3 milliliters per 25 gallons of aquarium water per day (you can start with less, especially if your aquarium is lightly stocked, small or new.) Take your chosen amount and dilute it into a cup or two of aquarium water, then pour this into a return or into a high flow area. If you're also using other Nutramar Liquid Feeds, make sure that you don't exceed a TOTAL of 3ml per 25 gallons (per day) of all the combined products you choose.
This is a shelf stable product as long as you keep it out of direct sun, until you open it, then it needs to be refrigerated. It'll keep in the fridge for three months or so, but you're going to use it up well before that, unless you have a miniscule tank and / or feed it too sporadically. The 100ml bottle should last you a month of daily feeding for a 25-gallon set up. So, if you have a 50 gallon or bigger tank, you should probably opt for the 200ml bottle.
For those of you with allergy concerns, this stuff obviously contains crustaceans, and less obviously also contains mollusks. There aren't any nuts in it, but it is produced in a facility where nuts are processed and you'd be nuts not to use it (unless you have a nut allergy, then ask your doctor).
We suggest feeding Nutramar Liquid Feed – Natural Copepods daily, as part of a well-rounded feeding regimen that includes Nutramar Pellets, Shots, Crumbles, Dried Algae, Live Algae and mix in an appropriate blend of Gamma Frozen foods. This is pretty much everything we feed here (outside of some serious specialty stuff, and some proprietary stuff for QM Labs). If we trust this mix of foods, you can too. It's good enough for the most hardcore of home aquarists (there are many of us here, and we feed our tanks the same at home too.) All the Nutramar foods are of the highest quality, all killer, no filler. If you want your fish and inverts to eat the best they can, delve deep into the Nutramar line of products. Your aquarium denizens would thank you if they could talk, but they can't so you'll just have to be happy watching them chow down! Hit your LFS and stock up on some new Nutramar Liquid Feed! Tell them Quality Marine sent you.