# Fish that eat copepods



## BrynnaCC (Jan 5, 2014)

Well, I haven't had many fish that _wont_ eat copepods, but I've personally seen my honey gourami, endlers, celestial pearl danios, betta, cardinal tetras, pygmy hatchet fish, harlequin rasboras, neon tetras, and microdevario kubotai eat them.


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## amcoffeegirl (May 26, 2009)

I was going to say I think most fish will eat them if they see them moving. Stir up the substrate a bit if you can and they will come out of hiding. I know guppies will eat them.
Sparkling gourami hunt all day for those things as do bettas.


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## kep (Feb 3, 2015)

Ok awesome! Do they seem to keep a handle on them? I have seen my female guppy eating algae off the driftwood and I bet she would love some copepods. I may swap her into the new tank with some sisters. Still working on stocking but this is great. I thought it might be difficult to find the right fish.


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## nchmi28 (Feb 8, 2015)

My Scarlet Badis is always hunting them, I have to reintroduce more about every 3 weeks, since he doesn't eat flake food.


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## kep (Feb 3, 2015)

nchmi28 said:


> My Scarlet Badis is always hunting them, I have to reintroduce more about every 3 weeks, since he doesn't eat flake food.



Really! Where do you get them? Well good to know. When this tank starts filling out I'll need someone who will want some plants that likely have copepods in them. Keep me in mind in about 6 weeks and I'll RAOK you some if you want!


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## nchmi28 (Feb 8, 2015)

kep said:


> Really! Where do you get them? Well good to know. When this tank starts filling out I'll need someone who will want some plants that likely have copepods in them. Keep me in mind in about 6 weeks and I'll RAOK you some if you want!


I currently have 3 colonies of them going. 2 are in sealed jars with some aquatic plants, that sit in a sunny window. The third is in a vase I keep on my desk for excess snails removed from other tanks. I got the original from a small, spring fed, stream near my house. It started with me just scooping up some water and plants to see how the plants would do if removed from the stream. Then I noticed the little buggers skittering around. After having the plants sit on my window sill for about 3 weeks I was lucked into my Scarlet Badis while searching for something to replace some Danios, that I had to re-home. So I introduced some of them into the tank with the Badis and he immediately went on the hunt for them. I recently went back to the stream to try to start another colony but, after a few days I noticed that the batch had quite a few dragonfly nymphs in it. Since they may grow large enough to make a meal of my tiny fish, or turn into dragon flies and be in my house, I brought that batch back to the stream. So it seems the time for collecting is in early spring before the flying insects have had a chance to hatch out.


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