A Few Questions On Live Food

[Nyx]

Hi guys

At the weekend i got some live brine shrimp. They are sat in a jam jar waiting for their final swim lol As i didnt want to feed the fish to many at once.

My questions are :

How long can i expect them to live? could i buy lots in one go and pop them in a small tank and scoop them out as needed? ( the closest lfs that does live food is around 20miles away, so would be easier to buy a few "packs" at a time )

My second questions is

is it possible / easy to breed them?

Cheers

Ally
x x

 

[Athena]

Well, I asked my LFS this same question but was told that once bought if I wanted to keep some to feed the next day I should keep them in the fridge! I thought that sounded a bit strange, thinking the coldness would surely kill them off - but no, I buy them on a Saturday morning and put a pack of them in the fridge (you know how they come in those little plastic packs in water?) and the next day, take them out and they are still swimming around. Amazing! Actually, I noticed the LFS keeps their supply in their large fridges, too. Not sure how many days they can be kept in the fridge for, though, I've only ever kept them till the next day.

I know that when my daughter used to keep them as pets ("Sea Monkeys") the eggs would hatch and for a few days there would be lots swimming about but they nearly all died off and she'd be lucky if one survived a fortnight.

Athena

 

[Nyx]

In the fridge!! How odd lol

I never knew that brine shrimp were sea monkeys lol

I think they are so cool, could watch them for ages.

Will try them in the fridge and have a word with guy at lfs next time we go.

Thanks for the reply hun.

(Did you fish recover??)

 

[jennybugs]

I keep my live bloodworms and brineshrimp and river shrimp in the fridge. They last for 3-4 days. If the water starts going cloudy/reddish on the bloodworm I know they've passed their use-by date

The shrimp will look cooked when they expire

 

[Athena]

Oh, my little German Blue Ram female? Sadly, no... By the time I got home from work she was gone, poor thing. I've got to try to find another mate for the male now... he looks a bit lost without her swimming by his side.

Yeah, really weird how those brine shrimps stay alive in the cold fridge, eh? Makes me laugh how we get conned into paying lots of money for a sea monkey set up for our kids, get a sachet of eggs, sachet of food etc - and yet you can go into an LFS and buy a pack of live "sea monkeys" for about a £1 LOL!

I was thinking, you could always try keeping some as an experiment, in a little container, if you could get your hands on some of the food they normally need. I wonder if they would eat crushed up fish flake food? Yes, best to ask at your LFS, I think.

I should think that when they are kept in the little sealed plastic bags in a fridge for more than a couple of days they would need feeding and without some sort of food they would die off.

Let us know what you find out, though!

Athena

 

[Nyx]

I have an old little tank so i may have a go with them in there next time.

I have fry food so will try giving them some of that.

If they die havent lost out as they was only about 40p lol

Sorry your ram didnt make it. Good luck in finding a mate for you little fella!!

 

[Colin_T]

Live brineshrimp, blackworms & tubifex worms do better in the fridge because the cold slows down their metabolism and helps stop the dead ones from rotting. Thus keeping the water cleaner and more of them alive for longer.
Brineshrimp can be kept alive in a small tank with salt water in. I use sea water from the beach and have an airline (not airstone) bubble gently in one corner. The shrimp can live in here for several weeks or longer if they are fed. Unfortunately they usually starve after a week and they have little nutritional value unless they are full of algae.
You can buy brineshrimp eggs from the petshop and hatch them out in salt water. Then either feed the newly hatched shrimp to the fish. Or move the shrimp into a tank full of green water (free floating algae) and leave them to grow up. Newly hatched brineshrimp are a great food for small fish and packed with nutrients. Once they are a few days old and have absorbed their yolk sac they are of little value nutritionally.

You can buy frozen brineshrimp and this will last in the freezer for months. The frozen shrimp are usually fed with a high quality algae before they are frozen. This means they are a better food source than the live ones.
You can also buy plenty of other frozen fish foods or make your own. Fresh or frozen prawn is a good food for most fish. I use river prawn from the local bait shop and keep them in the freezer. I remove one or two, defrost and shell them. Then cut them into little pieces and feed a bit at a time.

If you want live food then perhaps culture daphnia. Fill up a (40+ litre) container with freshwater. Add 1 level tablespoon of lawn fertiliser for every 20 litres of water. Add an airstone if possible and leave until it goes green. Then add some live daphnia and wait. In a few weeks you will be able to harvest daphnia every few days to feed the fish. Daphnia live in freshwater so any that don't get eaten will simply swim around the tank until they get chomped.