There have been a number of recent records of non-native zooplankton invasions in New Zealand, but the transport vectors leading to their introduction are not well understood. Commercially available fish foods containing zooplankton are widely used in home aquariums and the aquaculture industry. These foods are either imported to, or cultured within, New Zealand, and sold as freeze-dried, sun-dried or frozen adults, as capsulated or decapsulated cysts, or as live individuals. In this study, fish food containing Daphnia O.F. Müller, 1785 (Cladocera), Artemia (brine shrimp) and Brachionus (rotifers) were bought from a variety of commercial suppliers within the North Island, New Zealand, which were cultured and manufactured domestically or internationally. Live Daphnia samples were identified morphologically and were found to contain a variety of both native and non-native Daphnia species, as well as copepods, ostracods, rotifers and other non-Daphnia cladoceran species. Freeze-dried and sun-dried diapausing eggs of Daphnia and the rotifer Brachionus were incubated in artificial pond water, Aachener Daphnien Medium (ADaM) and filtered pond water, but hatching of these were unsuccessful. In contrast, Artemia bought as both capsulated and decapsulated cysts were successfully hatched in water with a salinity of 25 ppt and temperatures of 20 °C. The resulting Artemia populations were either parthenogenic or sexual, varying by manufacturer. Frozen whole adult Artemia were found to carry eggs but could not be hatched. Due to the risk of misidentifications from morphological identification, a 658-bp fragment from the 5ʹ region of the COI gene was amplified from tissue samples. The phylogenetic tree constructed from the COI gene sequences identified distinct clades corresponding to four species: A. franciscana, A. parthenogenetica (both hatched from eggs as viable populations), A. sinica, and A. salina (both identified in food, but not viable). The BLAST analysis indicated that the capsulated cysts from USA and German manufacturers contained Artemia franciscana, while the Chinese supply contained A. parthenogenetica. Decapsulated cysts from a Chinese manufacturer hatched into A. parthenogenetica. While A. franciscana can be legally imported into New Zealand, A. parthenogenetica is not listed in the Import Health Standard for ‘Fish food and fish bait’ under the Biosecurity Act 1993. The morphological identifications matched the BLAST analysis data for Daphnia. Non-native Daphnia pulex was recorded from live samples from Te Aroha, Hamilton and Wellington (LID5). An Auckland sample and another Wellington sample comprised of native D. carinata s.l. Overall, commercially available fish food from aquarium suppliers can act as a vector for non-native zooplankton to New Zealand.