Artemia

sorgan

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Today I was in a pet shop when I spotted them across the store, sea monkeys, the pet for people who can't keep fish.
The sight sent me into a jolt of pure genius as I remembered that sea monkeys are just hybrid artemia, so I got a pack.
I am sitting here now watching a green platic tub that has a small plastic spoon on top, it's full of RO with the magical 'purifier crystals' (salt and eggs) dumped in and I've got to say that I've encountered a problem, can fish eat sea monkeys? I assumed that a hybrid of artemia wil be fish friendly, a tomato is a tomato even if it's a cross breed right. Right????
TBH the likely hood of these things becoming food is slim, the set up is so child friendly I would be a monster to fees them to the family but if I can raise artemia in a pint plastic pot I can easily do it in a proper set up and produce fish (and lps) food.

Ps where can I find phytoplankton ( the enriching stuff)
 
You can either grow your own Phyto or purchase from this guy
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Phyto-Plus__W0QQ_armrsZ1
Cant believe you purchased "Monkeys" lol
ATB
C
 
it is very, very easy to raise Artemia/baby brine shrimp (bbs), all you need is a bottle of decapsulated artemia eggs, a jam jar of tank water and a warm window cill. Add squirt of eggs to jam jar of water & shake a couple of times a day. In a few days you will have 1000's of tiny bbs swimming about, then add phyto to enrich, syphon artemia & feed. Easy, peasy. Once comfortable with 1 jamjar, get a whole window cill full to ensure you always have fresh fish food.
 
Soooooooo will the monkeys be ok as fish food?
 
yes you can feed 'monkeys' to fish, we all feed them from time to time :good: they are just a varient of brine shrimp

Seffie x
 
WOOT, fear me monkeys for I am your doom :)
 
They won't last too long past 3 days without food, but with phyto they grow up quickly to become big and creepy looking.
 
Don't purchase gimmicks buy proper eggs in volume
TA Aquaculture sell eggs/cysts priced per volume.
If you want to go that extra mile.

De-capsulating Brineshrimp Eggs
A step by step pictorial
by
BigC



The problem with hatching brineshrimp eggs using conventional methods means that once hatched you are left with literally millions of unwanted shell casings, these inadvertently get fed along with the newly hatched shrimp to your fry and corals, they are in fact quite sharp and can kill fry. So what can we do to keep fry losses to a minimum whilst separating those unwanted egg casings?
We can dissolve the outer shell of the Brineshrimp cyst by a process known as De-Capsulation.
If you examine a Brineshrimp cyst under a strong lens or microscope you will see that it has the look of a deflated ball, lots of little dimples and a large indentation.

Before we begin the de-capsulation process we will need to make the outer shell spherical. Before we can start the process the outer shell must be fully hydrated. We do this by hydrating the amount of eggs you wish to de-capsulate in a water solution.

UHBSeggs.jpg

Here is a picture of Brineshrimp Cysts before actual Hydration, I have seperated a little group to illustrate the concave shape of most of the eggs before immersing in water.

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This picture shows the dramatic difference in the shape of the cyst after they have been immersed in water for 90 mins


The items we will be using are:-
Household Bleach (non Fragranced)
White Vinegar
2x Small beakers with lids
Cotton Handkerchiefs or Brineshrimp sieve
Brineshrimp eggs/cysts
Airpump & Airline
Brineshrimp hatchery.

Picture289.jpg


As I only de-capsulate the amount of eggs I need for any one feeding, I will show you my methods and you can scale these up or down as need be to suit your own situation.

Take a small plastic beaker (mine holds around 250ml) and fill this to about a third of its volume with normal tap water, add to this one level teaspoon of Brineshrimp Eggs and replace the cap on the beaker. Shake the mixture vigorously and keep shaking this solution periodically over the course of 90 minutes or so to fully hydrate the eggs.

Picture291.jpg

Eggs Settled

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Eggs in Suspension (keep shaking the jar periodically)

Once you’ve done that remove the cap and add household bleach until the container is around three quarters full. Replace the cap and shake once and let the eggs settle for a few moments then shake the jar to really mix the bleach and the eggs in the solution.

Picture296.jpg

Notice the reaction starting to take place (foaming at the top of the liquid)

Within a few minutes you should notice a reaction taking place, the colour of the cyst should change from brown to grey to white to orange depending on the strength of the chemicals and the thickness of the shell.

Picture297.jpg

Start of the reaction process

Picture299.jpg

It's working

Picture298.jpg

Almost finished!

When you notice that most of the cysts are orange in colour (90%) STOP! The process immediately by pouring the solution into a cotton hankie draped over another jar. Now, pour a small amount of white vinegar over de-capsulated eggs and once you’ve done this rinse the eggs under the tap to rid them of the entire bleach and vinegar residue.

Picture303.jpg

Rinse with White Vinegar and with plenty of tap water

Picture304.jpg

Finished Product - The Amber Nectar.

Once you have your de-capsulated eggs you can hatch them in the normal way, only this time you will have none of the annoying egg casings to contend with.

Picture305.jpg

Ready for hatching using the normal conventional method.

This may seem a awful lot of trouble to go to in order to feed your fry or corals. Believe me it is well worth the effort, as you will attain a visually higher hatch rate along with clean no mess feeding.
Why don’t you try it some time, see for yourself.

Larger amounts of eggs can be used along with large amounts of chemical agents for aquarists who need higher volume hatches to feed their fry. De-capsulated Brineshrimp can also be stored in a heavy brine solution (which effectively dehydrates the membrane thus allowing the aquarist to store the eggs for up to a month in the fridge. Of course you dont even have to hatch the nauplii you can feed the unhatched shrimp in the membrane, some say its better nutritionally for the fry. I'll leave you to decide.....

I hope this article was of some help to those aquarists who are fed up with hatching Brineshrimp and the constant battle of trying to separate shrimp from shell.

Regards
BigC
 
I feed my corals with uncapsulated eggs, thanks BigC for the process of decapsulating them at home! My Fungia gets quite inflated when I chuck in some eggs and those who escape the corals hatch and become snacks for my Blenny!
 
No Problem,
I thought it may come in useful to post that article here.
Buying ready DE-caped eggs/cysts in small numbers can work out quite expensive so why not do it yourself.
ATB
C
 

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