Brine Shrimp

Hi guys! I was wondering if it was possible to create a continuous loop of brine shrimp since they breed prolifically. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to grow them or set up a system that might work for them? I wanted to grow them to feed my fish as a main source of food?

 

O one more question: mandarin gobies will eat brine shrimp yes?

 

Brine shrimp are not nutritious enough to be a main source of food for marine fish. Best used to initiate a feeding response or as an occasional supplement.

 

+1 Absolutely!

If you're specifically targeting a mandarin, you need to farm copepods. That's what they feed on exclusively in the wild, and brine shrimp to them are little more than what potato chips are to us.

 

The best thing to do is have a large enough refuge for the mandarin to get enough copepods. Otherwise, it's a downhill fight to keep them fed. Some local fish stores will siphon out a tank/refuge full of copepods for a fee to help you get jump start. Give them time to breed and spread before getting the mandarin though.

 

I don't know if I completely agree on the nutrition. Baby brine shrimp are pretty nutritious. Also, in the wild fish tend to eat lots of less nutritious food, rather than less highly nutritious food. Usually in our systems we go for the latter though, as less food=less pollution. So, would probably be okay if the mandarin would eat baby brine shrimp, but that I couldn't say for sure. Based on estimated pod requirement, i've seen for mandarins, there is no way IMO that any of us could be sustaining them on pods alone, in a closed system, so, logically the ones that survive must be eating something else. But what remains a question.

 

Agreed baby brine are pretty packed with nutrition, the problem lies in the fact that they lose almost all their nutritional value pretty quickly so you would have to have a continuous supply on baby brine

 

Evolution had a funny way of determining what can survive on which types of food. As mammals, we would not survive grazing in a pasture, but cows and horses can. Likewise, we can eat meat, they cannot. The underwater world is no different, and time has proven that certain fish require a certain diet...

Look up the threads Mandarins in a nano part 1 and part 2; You will see the (very) early demise of not just one, but two ORA tank-bred mandarins that were, in fact, feeding on frozen foods before the member would accept the truth.

 

Are those the threads of Nanareefer that have been locked?

 

Aside from the discussion as to appropriateness of live brine for mandarins, here is the scoop on the nutrition side of brine shrimp grown from GSL cysts.
Immediately upon hatching, the nauplii are rich in huffa's (the fatty acids) and have good protein levels, but as the egg sack is consumed, the huffa levels drop dramatically. As the brine shrimp grow through their approximately 15 molts, the protein levels raise so that juveniles and adults have a DW percentage ranging from 49.7 to 62.5 which is higher than the protein levels found in most marine foods. However, the huffa levels only run between 9.4 to 19.5 percent DW.
The NICE thing about brine shrimp is that you can enrich the brine with whatever you require such as more protein or the huffa's. You can even load them up with medications.
The nauplii cannot be enriched until Instar II stage which normally should be completed by the end of 24 hours if not before, and, they take a long time to enrich and it is usually done in two 12 hour stages with new water and enrichment for each stage.
Juveniles about mid size will take 12 to 14 hours, but adults will only take about 4 hours.
If you need to feed medicines that are not already in the form of particulate matter appropriately sized, you can emulsify (blended with egg yolk is the cheapest although not most effective way) or you can use focus to bind the medicine to spirulina powder and feed that to the brine which will get fed to the fish.
For the best FACTUAL information on artemia (brine shrimp) you can view the Food and Agriculture paper (United Nations) at:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3732e/w3732e00.htm
Scroll down to section 4.0 Artemia.
The nutrition information is found in section 4.4.1