• Rich source of vitamins, pigments, amino acids, and essential fatty acids.
   
• Contains particles of a wide range of sizes, from less than 10 microns to more than 250 microns.
   
• For filter-feeding invertebrates.
   
• For zooplankton-eating fishes.
   
• Low moisture means concentrated nutritional value.
   
• Long Shelf life.

What are zooplankton?
 

Zooplankton are floating and weakly swimming animals that drift with the movements of water-masses. Along with phytoplankton they form the base of the food chain upon which all aquatic creatures ultimately depend. Zooplankton include many types of animals, from single celled protists and tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans such as copepods, ostracods, mysids and euphausids, to the eggs and larval stages of other crustaceans, mollusks, worms, echinoderms, and fishes. Crustaceans are the main group, making up about 70% of zooplankton species.
 

The countless tiny animals that make up the zooplankton play an important role in the food web of a coral reef. A large part of the total coral metabolic requirements may be covered by predation on zooplankton, and corals that feed on zooplankton can calcify more than 50% faster. Non-photosynthetic corals as well as other filter feeders depend heavily on zooplankton food to meet their metabolic needs, but also obtain some of their nutrition from dissolved or particulate organic matter (marine snow), and phytoplankton.