Dinkins Aquatic Gardens Live Marine Amphipods

Dinkins Aquatic Gardens Live Marine Amphipods are a hardy, self-sustaining cleanup crew and natural live food for reef and saltwater aquariums. Each order contains roughly 75 amphipods, packed with one or more reef-safe nylon sponges for them to burrow into during transport. Larger and more visible than copepods, amphipods patrol your rock, sand, and sump around the clock.

Build a complete living micro-fauna population by pairing them with our Dinkins Copepods Reef Snacklebox and live phytoplankton, or browse all our saltwater livestock and reef supplies.

What Amphipods Do

Amphipods are voracious detritivores. They graze on uneaten food, fish waste, detritus, and film algae, reaching into rock crevices and deep sand that your snails, crabs, and urchins cannot. Because they breed readily in a mature tank or refugium, an established population keeps working and reproducing long after you add it.

• Consume detritus, waste, and nuisance film algae
• Reach tight spots other cleanup crews miss
• A prized live food for mandarins, wrasses, and seahorses
• Breed in the tank and refugium for an ongoing supply

How to Add Them

For the best establishment, add amphipods after lights-out so they can spread and hide before fish are active. Pour the jar contents, sponge included, straight into your sump or refugium, or into the display if you have plenty of rockwork. Give them a few weeks with minimal predation to build numbers before heavy grazers start hunting them.

Specifications

Recommended Pairings

• Dinkins Copepods Reef Snacklebox adds copepods alongside amphipods for a full size range of live food.
• Dinkins Live Phytoplankton, Six-Species Blend feeds pods at the base of the food chain so populations grow.
• Copepod Refugium Habitat gives pods a predator-free space to breed and multiply.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many amphipods will I get?
Roughly 75 per order. Exact counts vary a little since these are hand-packed live cultures.

Will my fish eat them all?
Active pod hunters like mandarins and wrasses can. Seeding a refugium or sump first gives amphipods a protected place to breed so the population sustains itself.

Are they reef safe?
Yes, completely. Amphipods only consume detritus, waste, and algae, never healthy corals or livestock.

What is the sponge for?
Amphipods are benthic and like to cling to surfaces, so the reef-safe nylon sponge gives them somewhere to burrow and lowers stress in transit. Drop it in your sump and the pods will migrate out on their own.