Frozen or live?

Was wondering if antone had any knowledge on growing live brine shrimp and if it was better than frozen brine for the tank?

 

Not really sure...But i bet growing them would be better, just seems to be an obvious choice for me. I feed frozen and many others also do, i have good color and AMAZING growth lmao.

 

Freshly hatched is the best, in reality it is more like candy than anything else. Feed meatier fare like mysis and chopped shellfish and fish. Plankton and cyclops are other good ones.

 

I was thinking of plans for a build and using a old 10 gallon next to the sump that is designated to grow brine shrimp and use a low gph pump on a timer to feed them throught the day with a constant supply of fresh meaty food. This is just a thought any one have somthing built like this that may have worked.

also this would not be the refugium it would be in the sump and would grow pods.

 

Live brine shrimp be they nauplii or juvenile or adults, are a much better food after enrichment with a suitable product.
Newborn nauplii have to be grown for a day after hatchout until the nauplii develop a mouth and anus before they can feed, and it takes two 12 hour sessions with new water and enrichment for each 12 hour period to maximize the benefits.
Juvenile and adults can be enriched in one to two hours but have better profiles if enriched for 8 hours.
Round containers, tapered preferrably, work best as it keeps the food in suspension better.
On my artemia page you could scale my operation to suit the demand you have in your own situation, but in truth, to raise any meaningful numbers, it can be a lot of work getting them to a decent size.
RAISING BRINE SHRIMP TO ADULT
Adding nhbbs to a tank doesn't help much unless the fish in the tank are all small. Larger fish tend to ignore baby brine.
For feeding the micro life in my tanks I use enriched rotifers instead of brine.

Now, all this being said, I have to also say that If I lived in the US, I wouldn't grow the brine shrimp myself but would instead order from livebrineshrimp.com instead where it is cheap and easy to maintain the culture instead of having to grow it first.

 

that does sound like alot of work..... espically when i can buy frozen and supplement diffrent foods with them. maby i will use the 10 gallon as a qt tank or a frag tank. thanks for the great info ray jay and 2in10 really helped with my decision. K+ to you.

 

You can also make your own food. The fish LOVE the variety in every feeding. I just recently started making my own, and I'll never go back to premade/frozen food. I spent about $10 on fresh ingredients, and I made enough food to last close to a month. The supplements will raise the cost a bit, but they ensure the fish get their vitamins.

I make my food from...

1) fresh shrimp (2-3 med size ones)
2) squid (1 small squid)
3) clams (3 medium ones)
4) mysis (I admit, I do use the frozen stuff here, 5 cubes)
5) scallops (about 15 of the little ones, you can use the big ones too)
6) nori sheets (half a sheet of the purple one)
7) cyclops-eze (about 2 tablespoons worth)
8 ) Kent Marine Zoe (1 teaspoon)
9) Seachem Garlic Guard (1 tablespoon)
10) Vita-chem marine (1 tablespoon)


- Chop up ingredients 1-5, and combine them in a container.
- Take your nori sheet, and soak them in some aquarium water. Once they become soft, chop it up, and add to the container.
- Add your cyclops-eze
- Add your vitamins and garlic (8-10) and mix it all really well.

Personally, I used a tablespoon to spoon the mixture into ice cube trays. I feed about a tablespoon at a time, so I made ready to feed cubes. When they freeze, I put them into an airtight container (trust me, the smell is not the greatest, lol). Another option is to fill ziploc bags with some of the mixture, press them flat as you seal them, and make big sheets. Then just break off what you need at feeding time. Personally I find the cube method easier.

Anyhoo, my fish absolutely love the stuff.

 

One other thing I forgot to mention, is to make sure you give your fresh ingredients a good rinse in RO water before you chop em up.

 

ahhhh.... that sopunds like alot less work and alot more benifical and cheeper lol the bad part is im not lazy but why work harder than you have to is my motto i appreciate the help with the home made food

 

I agree with Rayjay, Growing brine shrimp to adult hood is a PITA! And once they are adults they are not really of much nutritional value unless they are enriched with something like Selcon, then and only then are they worth feeding to your fish.

With all the prepared foods on the market its really just not a good option.