Keeping brine shrimp alive

[garfieldnfish]

I have set up a 2.5 gal aquatic pet carrier with an airstone, a fake plant and some rocks (plant and rocks just for looks, doubt they would be needed) and hatched brine shrimp eggs in this tank. I have added seasalt at the recommended dosis for saltwater aquariums and the shrimp appear to be doing fine. I feed them Phytoplex from Kent, bread baking yeast and crushed spiritulina flakes, (placed in a cloth and kept in a saltwater cup. I squeeze it and they get a drop of the green soup every day). I have had them now for almost 3 weeks and they are seemingly doing ok. I would like to get them to grow into adults and reproduce to keep the culture selfsustaining but this is where I enter an unknown zone. How long will this take and has anyone done this before? When I bought my last L174, an adult brine shrimp was backstroking in the bag. The ride home is over 1 hour and when I got home the shrimp was gone. This gave me the idea and I believe the petstore feeds this to their meat eating plecos. They have saltwater set ups as well and I am sure they are raising their own supply. Any info would be helpful.
Also I have not done any water changes to this set up for fear of sucking these tiny creatures up. But the water evaporates at a high rate and I have to fill it up with fresh water every few days, some of the salt also has to be replaced as some of it is always found deposited on the airtubing outside the tank and on the counter surrounding the tank.

[wrasser]

are yo raising them for saltwater fish or freshwater fish?

[garfieldnfish]

Fresh water to feed my L46's and L174 and other carnivores/omnivores. I rinse them before I put them in the tanks.

[wrasser]

i dont know any thing about freshwater,meaning L46 and L174. i do know ther is not ant nutrients in brine shrimp. unless it is fun for you, try the ghost shrimp.

[Scuba Kid]

brine shrimp aren't really a good food source for fish.

[Osiris]

scuba, actually they are for fry and some dragonnet species, and other Salties. I dont worry about it too much they eat mysis shrimp and frozen brine shrimp fine, i do on saturday go get 30 ghost shrimp and a bag full of adult brine shrimp live since it's $1 for brine shrimp and ghost shrimp only $0.15/each.

[wrasser]

does brine shrimp have enough nutrients for the frys and dragonnets, or is it a supplement to help get the fish to eat?

[garfieldnfish]

You can gut load them too by feeding them a large amount of spiritulina flakes before feeding them to the fish, that gives them a little more value. I want to feed the brine shrimp to my fish mostly to condition them to breed (live foods seem to do it for some fish) and to give them some entertainment by giving them a chance to "hunt" their own food. This is not their stable diet just a treat.

[Osiris]

Originally Posted by wrasser @ Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:33 pm

does brine shrimp have enough nutrients for the frys and dragonnets, or is it a supplement to help get the fish to eat?

I am not sure, i am sure a supplement of other things would be necessary, as you can purchase copepeds too live, so that works. Just from what i have heard on reefcentral, that some have been able to get them to take frozen foods the mandrins, like mysis, brine, not sure about plankton..

[wrasser]

well for the saltwater fish i have brine shrimp really do nothing, i have herd that they are soaking brine in vitamin C to helpyour fish get that vittamin. i dont do it. ghost shrimp are ths smallest i go. i use to have a mandrin that ate spectrum. my 150 has a bunch of anthrpods in it, i keep finding them in the filter media in the wet-dry. thanks

[Osiris]

cool! i was debating about setting up a storage bin and get some liverock goin and try to farm some pods out of them...hmmm

[wrasser]

its a good idea, are you going to sell them or they for yourself. for yourself- they have piggy back refugiums you can harvest them there.

[Osiris]

hmm prolly for myself unless i see that iam doing fine and have some to spare. I plan on keeping my 10g nano and setting up a 30L in my new place, and having a CPR HOB fuge i have already for it...so pods bring it on! lol I just really want a mandrin so harvesting pods in another storage container is my best option..

[wrasser]

yea, i understand i had two of them(mandrins), thank god i have a mature tank, i have eight wrasse that love anthrapods, as did the mandrins. how long has your tank been running?

[Osiris]

only have the 10g now..been downgrading all tanks til after i move, i am picking up 75g setup next week from LFS, that is going to be the new SW tank for my new place in May Then off to begin farming pods and all that good sh*t. Thinking or hoping around halloween should be ready and populated well enough for the guy..

[wrasser]

sounds great, it dont take too long to hatch pods. the longest thing you got going for you is the cycle of the tank. keep us in touch and let us know