Frozen Red Plankton Flat 454g

• Disperses through the water column - the single most useful property in a reef tank, where a fast-sinking food only ever feeds the substrate.
• 2 to 3 mm animals - small enough for large-polyp corals and anemones to capture, large enough for most reef fish to bother with.
• High astaxanthin - the natural carotenoid behind red and orange pigmentation in both fish and coral tissue.
• 2.8% fat, the richest in the single-species frozen range - Calanus stores omega-3 fatty acids as its cold-water energy reserve, and that is what you are buying.
• Single-ingredient declaration - red plankton and nothing else. No binder, no added colour, no preservative named.
• 454 g bulk slab - roughly four and a half times a 100 g blister, for reef tanks fed daily or for several tanks off one pack.
• Whole animals - flash frozen intact rather than minced, so less dissolves into the water before anything eats it.

The food is identical. The difference is entirely in how you portion it and how long it lasts.

The honest catch with a flat pack is that it demands a little more care. A slab handled roughly softens at the edges, and a food that has partly thawed and been put back is a food you should not be feeding. Break the pack into usable portions once, while it is rock hard, and store them in a sealed container.

Full ingredient declaration

Reproduced exactly as Ocean Nutrition publishes it: Red plankton.

That is the complete declaration. Calanus are copepods and therefore crustaceans, so the pack carries a crustacean allergen for anyone handling it. No artificial colours, preservatives, ethoxyquin, BHA or BHT are named, because nothing beyond the animal itself is named at all.

Analytical constituents

Ocean Nutrition does not publish a crude fibre figure for this product, so none is shown here rather than estimated.

Reading the fat figure

Frozen foods are analysed wet, so 2.8% fat understates what is actually being delivered. Only 14.5% of the slab is solid matter.

On a dry-matter basis that works out at roughly 51% protein and roughly 19% fat. The fat is the point of this particular animal: Calanus finmarchicus overwinters in cold North Atlantic water on a stored lipid reserve, and that reserve is the omega-3 content the food is bought for.

Ocean Nutrition's direction is to feed 2 to 5 times a day, offering only what the tank will clear within five minutes.

Break off the portion you need while the slab is still frozen solid, then let it defrost in a small container at room temperature, without water, for ten to fifteen minutes. Never thaw the whole pack.

For coral feeding, mix the thawed portion with a little tank water and deliver it with a turkey baster or a dosing syringe, close to the polyps. Turning the return pump and wavemakers off for five to ten minutes gives the corals time to capture it before the skimmer does.

For fish alone, straining off the pack liquid first is worth doing. For broadcast coral feeding it matters less, because the fine material in that liquid is part of what filter feeders are taking.

Keep the pack frozen and never refreeze a thawed portion. A slab that has softened through and been returned to the freezer should be discarded, not fed.

Suitable for

• Marine fish of small and medium size - anthias, chromis, cardinals, wrasses, gobies and clownfish
• Large-polyp stony corals, anemones and zoanthids that capture particulate food
• Non-photosynthetic corals and gorgonians, which need suspended food rather than light
• Feather dusters, tube worms and other filter-feeding invertebrates
• Colour conditioning, where the natural astaxanthin supports reds and oranges already in the animal

Not suitable for

• Use as a sole diet - a single-species copepod is rich but narrow, and needs a mixed formula alongside it
• Newly hatched fry and the smallest filter feeders - at 2 to 3 mm this is too large, and Frozen Rotifers 100g at 0.2 mm is the food for that job
• Large predatory fish, which will not chase a 2 to 3 mm item in any useful quantity
• Freshwater aquariums - Ocean Nutrition rates this one for marine fish, corals and invertebrates
• Automatic feeders, which cannot handle a frozen wet food
• A single small tank fed once a week - 454 g will outlast its quality in the freezer before you finish it

• Frozen Rotifers 100g - the 0.2 mm size class, for small-polyp corals and fry that cannot take a copepod.
• Ocean Nutrition frozen copepods - a different copepod to rotate through the week.
• Frozen Marine Quintet 100g - a mixed marine blister that covers what a single-species food does not.
• Ocean Nutrition Coral Pellets Small 100g - a shelf-stable coral food for the days the freezer stays shut.
• Frozen Mysis Flat 454g - the same bulk flat format in a larger prey size for the fish.

Aquarium foods carry no manufacturer warranty period. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law apply in full and sit in addition to anything a manufacturer offers, including a remedy if a product arrives thawed, damaged or not of acceptable quality.

This is a frozen product and is handled as cold-chain stock. It travels by in-store pickup or local delivery rather than standard parcel post, because a 454 g slab that thaws in transit cannot be refrozen.

What exactly is red plankton?

Red plankton is Calanus finmarchicus, an omnivorous copepod of 2 to 3 mm that forms a major part of the marine food chain in the North Atlantic. Its red colour comes from natural astaxanthin, the same carotenoid that gives salmon and cooked prawns their colour.

Will red plankton feed my corals, or just the fish?

Ocean Nutrition rates it for corals and invertebrates as well as fish, and it disperses evenly through the water column rather than sinking quickly, which is what makes coral feeding practical. Turning off circulation for five to ten minutes during the feed makes a substantial difference to how much the polyps actually capture.

How do I portion a 454 g flat pack?

Break or shave off the amount you need while the slab is still frozen hard, and return the remainder to the freezer immediately. Breaking the whole pack into meal-sized pieces on the first day, then storing those in a sealed container, avoids repeatedly softening the edges of the slab.

Is the flat pack the same food as the 100 g blister?

Yes. Same species, same analysis, same single-ingredient declaration. The only differences are the quantity and whether the food arrives pre-portioned into cubes or as one solid slab you portion yourself.

Does red plankton raise nitrate and phosphate?

Any food added to a closed system contributes both, and a broadcast feed aimed at corals contributes more than a targeted feed because more of it goes uneaten. Straining the pack liquid when feeding fish, and feeding smaller amounts more often, are the two practical controls.

Can I feed this to freshwater fish?

Ocean Nutrition markets Red Plankton for marine fish, corals and invertebrates, and that is the use the product is specified for. Freshwater fish will generally eat it, but it is not the intended application and freshwater-specific frozen foods are the better fit.