Brine Shrimp (sea Monkeys)

[Hallett]

Hey,

My fish seem to go really crazy for frozen brine shrimp and was thinking I could start up some sea monkey tanks so I'd have a constant live supply for them. Well I don't know if theirs a better way but I havent actually seen anywhere you can buy live brine shrimp. Sea Monkeys are the same thing right and they seem relatively cheap. Any thoughts or has anyone tried this?

 

[rabbut]

You can culture them, but for a decent feeding regeme, you would need a massive culure as they can be slow to breed during cooler times of the year. It's doable yes, but practicle? Probibly not. Sea monkies are the same thing, yes, but I'd buy brine shrimp eggs through ebay to start off, as it is cheaper Remember not to add the culture water to your tank in large quantities, as it has salt in it, that may be bad for some fish.
Brine shrimp should not be the primary diet of your fish though, as they have minimal nutritional content and are mostly water. There are better staple diets out there

HTH, and good luck if you go ahead with it
Rabbut

 

[Hallett]

Might research it a bit more then. cheers for the advice!

 

[Colin_T]

you could try culturing daphnia. They are easy to grow and most fish will take them. Fill up a container with tapwater and add 1 tablespoon of lawn fertiliser per 20litres of water. Leave outside until it goes green. Then add some daphnia to the container. Within a few weeks there will be plenty and you can start feeding them off. If you can't find live daphnia you can often start cultures with frozen daphnia. The adult females produce eggs which can remain viable even after freezing and these hatch out to start a colony.

Newly hatched brineshrimp is a good food for small fish like tetras and guppies.

 

[rabbut]

Good surgestion from Coli_T there. Dafnia actualy have better nutritional content also, so are better for your fish

 

[waterdrop]

Colin, when you do the daphnia containers do you have much trouble with mosquitos also breeding in there?

Back on the brine shrimp topic.. seems like I've read a number of threads that suggest brine shrimp should be just an occasional snack, not really "junk food" but almost. Is this an exaggeration of their less than optimal nutrition status?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BigC]

Dafnia actualy have better nutritional content also, so are better for your fish

 

[waterdrop]

BigC you don't agree? Is there controversy about this? I remember brine shrimp as being particularly good for certain size fry when the brine shrimp themselves are baby stage. I also think I remember something about them being high ruffage?

 

[kewskills]

Not sure brine shrimp are that bad, i have a dwarf puffer which wont eat anything else and he's as healthy as can be, i think its an exaggeration their limited nutritional value.

 

[Proud Texan]

collin's right if you want to do that kind of thing go with daphia.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I've used baby brine shrimp to feed fry before and they did ok. Apprently adult brine shrimp have very little nutritional value unless you feed them up first so Daphina are possibly better (though to be honest I have never seen the results of any studies into the nurtritional properties of either so just going by the "public knowledge" which is not always right).

@waterdrop: If mosquitos also breed in there then its an added bonus I have left water out specifically for this and the fish seem to do fine on mosquitos larva. Just make sure you feed them all to your fish before they develop

 

[waterdrop]

thx barney, I guess that would be the thing then to catch them soon enough (in the southeast USA the last thing you need is more mosquitos )

 

[pastabake]

I've just bought a brine shrimp hatcher ... it fits inside the tank, which is a little hazardous and takes 48hrs to make more than enough to feed my fry. I was also thinking that combining this with micro worms (someone on here sells starter cultures) would be more than enough.

I looked into the Daphina and will probably go down that route too (though my local lfs sells bags for 50p while the brine shrimp are £1) but I read that for them to be useful you have to gut load them and that sounded like it'd take a bit more effort.

 

[Colin_T]

Newly hatched brineshrimp are highly nutritious due to the yolk sac on the baby shrimp (nauplii). Once the nauplii are 3 or 4 days old they have used up the yolk sac and lose most of their nutritional value. Then the main food value comes from the algae they are eating. Likewise the adult shrimp don't have a lot of nutritional value, most of it comes from the different alga they consume before the fish get them. Good quality brands of Frozen brineshrimp usually consists of adult brineshrimp that have been fed on high quality algae before they are frozen. Then the frozen shrimp have more nutritional value.

Daphnia don't have much more value than brineshrimp and again most of their nutritional value comes from the different alga they eat. They also have a shell that is pretty indigestible and as such it does provide a lot of roughage for fishes that eat them.

Mosquito lavae will appear in any container of water sitting outside. In some places it is illegal to culture mozzie larvae so any that appear in the buckets should be scooped out and fed to the fish. They are a bit more nutritious than adult brineshrimp & daphnia and will often encourage fish to breed.