Brine Shrimp

[mdq]

I just bought a few brine shrimp eggs and hatched them to feed my fish. I left them in the container for 48hrs and then separated the shrimp from the shells according to instructions. I poured the shrimp into my aquarium and most of my fish went crazy, except my yellow tang and a 6line wrasse who was only moderatley interested. My question is the shrimp were only about the size of this period (.), should I have waited longer for them to get bigger or is this the proper size?

Also I dont have a brine shrimp net so I poured them into a glass and then directly into my aquarium is this OK or do I need to strain them first to get rid of the hatching water?

[mdq]

No one is answering, should I be feeding something completely different?

[VWD]

Well to start off with don't pour the water from hatching into your tank, as far as being good on not, I think that as a change in diet that the brine is ok, but not as a regular food. So once in awhile I see no harm it it other then pouring the brine water into Your tank

[tims]

brine realy dont have any nutri. value to your fish, they are more of a treat. waiting until they are bigger might help the others who did not eat them.
you coudl add vitamins to there water befroe feeding them to help get some goodness in to them.

[wharyat]

I know my filter feeders love a dose of newly hatched brine every once in a while, also doesnt pollute as bad as the off the shelf filter feeder foods.

[tdwyatt]

Mysiids are of much greater nutritional value for fish, live if you can get them, frozen with as little water as possible otherwise. Use them with a turkey baster for target feeding large polyped corals, anemones, and slow feeding fishes. It is a great feed for planktonic feeding fishes when suspended in the water column.


Brine shrimp are more of a treat as has already been mentioned, and unless you're feeding the nauplii with greenwater and freshly hatched rotifers, they have a tendency to consume their yolk sacs, reducing their nutritional value as they age. Some suggest that feeding them with live yeast to be of value, but I don't have the documentation in front of me for that. Hopefully some of the folks that use enriched nauplii feeders will pipe in here.


HTH

[mdq]

What is the best way to seperate brine from the water the hatched in?

[mdq]

?

[VWD]

I am pretty sure that have nets,

[rayjay]

First of all, IGNORE REMARKS STATING BRINE SHRIMP HAVE NO NUTRITION.
The MARINE MARICULTURE INDUSTRY use brine shrimp both nauplii and adults as an important part of the feeding regieme that produce fish and shrimp for the food market industry. What would be the point if they only provided low nutrition levels?
Second, I would recommend you NEVER let hatching water come in contact with your tank water. Brine shrimp cysts CAN and sometimes DO harbour harmful bacteria that can damage or decimate your investment in your tanks.
While most times you will not have a problem, is it really worth it when a quick rinse in fresh water can help prevent such a catastrophe?
Back to the first part again.
There is a great misconception that brine shrimp are not nutritious and I suspect is stems from information originally gleened from packaging of frozen products where frozen brine shrimp list protein content based as a percentage of the whole packaging including the liquid packing medium.
Mysis shrimp, on the other hand have been listed similarly but most prevalently as a percentage of the shrimp alone. (by the way, production of mysid saltwater shrimp is achieved by large feedings of newborn brine shrimp nauplii)
An understanding of how distortion of facts can occur would be prudent at this point.
Analysis of nutrient content of various foods for our tanks needs some understanding. Products like spirulina and nori, for instance, have their analysis done based on a very low moisture content version, not the original "wet" condition as it is harvested.
Brine shrimp on the other hand have been traditionally analyzed based on the "harvested" condition, or harvested and packaged in medium state.
When we feed our tanks, the spirulina and nori are no longer dry as they immediately begin soaking in the salt water which the fish ingests along with the solid matter. Brine shrimp on the other hand, do not soak up any more water but already have a moisture content that the fish ingests to get the solid nutrients from.
To be fair then it would be best to analyze these products based on similar conditioning, either all dry or all wet. Barring that, at least take into consideration the fact that the brine shrimp are analyzed with HIGH moisture content and foods like spirulina and nori are analyzed with LOW moisture content.
For a rough comparison, most foods we feed our tanks seem to have about a 45% protein level. Brine shrimp, on the other hand, can have levels exceeding 60%, with those at lower levels still comparable with the 45% protein content.
Like in the Mariculture Industry, brine shrimp are not meant to be the sole food item to feed your tank, but to be a part of the feeding regieme. They are a great vessel for feeding specific foods by means of gut loading something you want the fish to have but they don't normally eat it.
In addition, they "exercise" your fish in fishes vigourous pursuit of this live food.
If you have any interest in pursuing this information further, you can research the Marine Mariculture Industry, or you can peruse this information taken from the Manual for Production and Use of Live Food for Aquaculture edited by Patrick Lavens and Patrick Sorgeloos of the Laboratory of Aquaculture and Artemia Reference Center, University of Gent, Gent Belgium, a world recognized institution in this field.
The whole article can be seen at:
Manual for Production and Use of Live Food for Aquaculture

Specifically, scroll down to table of contents and see section four, especially section 4.4.1

Last point, to separate the nauplii or brine shrimp, from the hatching medium, use a brine shrimp net which is far less porous than fish nets.
I use this inside a fish net with a small plastic bag cut to cover the bottom half of the fish net. With the brine shrimp net sitting inside this plastic in the fish net, you can filter the nauplii into the brine shrimp net and it helps to keep nauplii from being forced through the brine net and thus maximises the yield. Rinse in water of the same temperature of the hatching medium before either feeding them to the tank, or placing in new medium for on growing to adult.
My page on my rearing of brine shrimp:
RAISING BRINE SHRIMP

[tims]

here is another place that sell them THEY DO ENRICH them before they sell them.

[tims]

Artemia juveniles can be enriched in the same way as nauplii (see above), but, due to the higher filtration efficiency, this results in higher (n-3) HUFA levels in much shorter enrichment periods (1 - 4h) (Table 4.4.8.). It is furthermore assumed that these short enrichment periods may result in higher final DHA/EPA ratios in the biomass compared to nauplii when boosted with high-DHA emulsions, since there is insufficient time to break down the DHA as is the case in nauplii. There is however, an alternative method that takes profit of the specific aspects of ongrown Artemia: instead of adding the enrichment emulsion at the end of the culture, it is distributed during the culture. This way we take advantage of the feeding behaviour of brine shrimp. The essential fatty acids will not only be ingested but will be incorporated in the body tissue as well. Daily increasing doses of DRY SELCO (INVE Aquaculture NV, Belgium) are added to the food suspension so that total DRY SELCO ratio equalled 0.6 g.l^-1 (analogous to short term enrichment of nauplii) by the end of the culture (Table 4.4.7.). This method has several advantages: (n-3) HUFA levels can be five times higher than when the same amount is given in one ration after 7 days (Table 4.4.8.); the risk for acute oxygen drops is avoided and Artemia that are harvested before the end of the culture are already partially enriched.

taken from the text that was cited.
they too used an enrichment and had much better results in the end.

[VWD]

Thank's rayjay and Tim for that info. I will have to give it a try. I like to feed live brine once in awhile.

[rayjay]

The only supplier I have found for shipping live adult brine shrimp to Canada is LIVE BRINE SHRIMP

Are there any others you know about?
Tims link above is not for live brine as they sell packaged frozen brine and in large case lot sizes for comercial customers.
It would be nice to find a closer supplier than LBS.com in Florida to save some shipping costs.

[wharyat]

Very detailed page on raising rayjay; I think Im going to steal some of your ideas