Calan-Eeze is a new freeze dried offering from Two Little Fishies which is an ideal size for many species of fish, corals and invertebrates. Frozen Calanus copepods have become increasingly available to aquarists, especially in frozen form, but Calan-Eeze is the first product to provide a large quantity of these pods in a more affordable and easy to use package.
When we first heard about Calan-Eeze, a flash of pain washed over us in grief for the demise of one of our favorite aquarium foods, Cyclop-Eeze. This small bio-engineered copepod harvested from Canadian arctic lakes has been the foundation of zooplankton food for our fish and corals since the late 90s and we’ve been struggling to fill that sub millimeter sized hole in our aquarium diet ever since.
Clearly the absence of CyclopEeze was not lost on Two Little Fishies who picked a name for their Copepod offering which is clearly inspired by the classic aquarium food. At 2 to 3 mm Calan-Eeze is quite a bit larger than CyclopEeze but the red coloration and high protein content is very much in line with what we loved about nutrient-dense copepod foods.
In this department Calan-Eeze doesn’t disappoint with up to 55% protein and a red-pigment enhancing Astxanthin in concentration up to 440 parts per million. Despite being significantly larger than baby brine shrimp, rotifers and other small zooplankton foods, we’ve found Calan-Eeze to be an excellent replacement for Cyclopeeze since there is a significant portion of the Calanus copepods which are naturally broken down into tiny bits that are 1mm and smaller.
Since Calan-Eeze is a freeze dried food it will float in the surface until it is hydrated. In order to feed it to your tank you either need to drop it into a feeding ring to prevent being filtered by your overflow, or to pre-soak the food.
we’ve mostly taken to presoaking about two to four days worth of foods and then refrigerating these until they are needed. For the freshwater fish we soak the Calan-Eeze in pure freshwater, but for the saltwater tanks and corals we’re actually enriching the Calan-Eeze in AcroPower.
In a way, the small shrimp shaped Calan-Eeze reminds us a lot of the ever popular and classic fish food, Jumbo Krill. These large fingertip-sized shrimp have been a staple of feeding large aquarium fish and their large freeze-dried husks are perfect for soaking in an enrichment of vitamins.
With this inspiration in mind we’ve treated Calan-Eeze much the same way and enriching Calan-Eeze with AcroPower to feed our corals with a one-two punch of nutritious goodness seems like a no-brainer. Furthermore, the 2 to 3mm size of Calan-Eeze is a perfect size for feeding a variety of reef fish; anthias, gobies, cardinalfish and our Palau captive bred mandarins eat Calan-Eeze with gusto.
We had no idea that Calan-Eeze would become such an integral part of our aquarium nutrition as quickly as it did. At first we were really yearning for a direct replacement for CyclopEeze but it turns out to be more of a miniaturized version of another classic food, Jumbo Krill.
With decades of experience feeding Cyclopeeze and Jumbo Krill, Calan-Eeze slipped right in and became a great analog, albeit of a different size. Two Little Fishies’ freeze dried Calanus is now a major component to feeding our freshwater fish, saltwater fish and corals and we’re excited about once again having a great source of food with high protein content and a concentration of red enhancing pigments.
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