Raising Brine Shrimp

Raising brine shrimp to adulthood IMO is WAAYYYY more trouble than it's worth. It will require several large tanks, lots of water changes, and the result is a food source that is of negligable nutritional value to your fish. Some LFS will sell live brine shrimp, but not the run of the mill ones. In the wild the shrimp produce eggs in response to seasonal environmental ques. The eggs form a slick on the surface and are washed ashore by wave action where they spend the winter. Spring rains wash them back into the lake where they hatch.

hatching bbs as fish food on the other hand is a great idea. They are very nutritious for the first 24hrs (after which they are basically the iceberg letuce of the invert world). You would be surprised how many bbs you get from one of those 4.00 packages of eggs.

Keep it simple. Pint glass of salt water and eggs. Place a piece of ridgid airline tubing (attached to a length of flexible tubing) in the glass and plug it into an air pump. Aerate under a desk lamp (to provide light and heat) for about 36 hours. Unplug pump and let water sit for about ten minutes. Use the tubing to siphon the layer of shrimp into a brine shrimp net. Rinse under tap water and feed to fish.

That even sounds like too much of a hassle for me

If you have a LFS in your area they probably get a shipment of brine shrimp in once a week. If they do, buy some and you can keep them alive for a couple of days in a 1 gallon aquarium. You will need to add some aquarium salt and a air stone. After you get them into the aquarium you can feed them yeast. Do not keep the brine shrimp too long because they lose their nutritional value every day.

I have read about people raising mosquito larvae on this forum before but I am not too sure how they exactly do it but I'm sure it's a pretty clean process.

You could also by the frozen foods. They are easier to deal with than live food in my experience and they have all kinds of stuff to choose from.

How big are the older fish? I have three inch dwarf cichlids that relish live bbs. All tetras, and livebearers will see and eat them. Most stores will only sell live adults. It wouldn't be worth selling live bbs since it's so easy to hatch them, and they only maintain peat nutritional value for about 24hours. After that, any age brine shrimp, no matter how well fed just isn't that great. For your fish frozen bbs would be just as good. Live is usually used to invoke a feeding responce in newly hatched egglayers. Livebearers will go for anything.

Check out these two sites...After all sea monkeys are brine shrimp...Right?



http://www.angelfire.com/ab/rayjay/brineshrimp.html

http://www.sea-monkeys.com/

Untrue About Nutritional Value

I don't know where the myth started that Brine Shrimp have no nutrional value. But it is false.

So often things get repeated in the aquarium hobby that have no evidence to back them up.

Brine shrimp contain many of the necessary amino acids and vitamins that fish need.

People mistakenly read the labels of frozen foods as mostly water and they incorrectly think that means no nutritional value. The packages state the water content by percentage of weight not by percentage of the brine shrimp. You could logically eat a hamburger and drink a gallon of water, but the water won't deprive you of the nutrional value of the hamburger. Will it?

Flamingos survive on mostly brine shrimp. Many animals that inhabit brine lakes and lagoons do also.

Another myth that I have heard repeated is that the exoskeleton of a brine shrimp is calcium carbonate and therefore has no nutritional value. This is also false. Brine shrimp have a chitin exoskeleton which is basically fiber for fish. It is partially digestible.

Adult shrimp lose some nutritonal value but that can be made up by feeding them a proper diet.

Brine shrimp are easy to keep and raise. But water changes are needed and feedings everyday. It is time consuming, and is not really necessary given that frozen and freeze dried shrimp are available.

But it is cool to see your fish eat live food.