Psimitry,
I only culture mysids for fish that require them in their diet. Even the best production methods are costly and if the fish don't need them, then I just opt not to feed. The only exception is using mysids to increase the feeding response of newly acquired, or sick fish. Sea Dragons, shrimpfish and wild seahorses all do best if given live mysids. I also had a Bennett's butterfly fish that really went after mysids and pretty much ignored everything else.
If you are interested, my new book, "Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques" has my updated mysid culture technique in it. Here is an excerpt from the text in case you don't want to shell out the bucks for the book<grin>:
Jay Hemdal
Culturing the Mysid Shrimp, Mysidopsis (Americamysis) bahia as an Aquarium Food
Various species of Mysid shrimp, (also known as opossum shrimp) have been wild-collected or cultured as a live food for aquatic animals, which prefer living foods, such as seadragons, seahorses and pipefish. Many other species of fish relish the addition of Mysids to their diet, but difficulty in producing these crustaceans in sufficient quantity generally relegates their use to only the most critical cases. The method described can easily produce over 2000 Mysidopsis bahia per week with a time investment of less than 45 minutes per day. Equipment cost is minimal, and the only operational cost of note for this system is the substantial use of Artemia nauplii as a food source.
Culture area:
Using a rearing area with 80 - 100 square feet of floor space, establish three 30-gallon aquariums and ten 10-gallon tanks with synthetic seawater (at a salinity of 21 to 22 ppt) and air-driven biological filters. It helps to pre-establish the bacteria in the filters by running them in the sump of another marine system for three to four weeks prior to this time. An Artemia system capable of hatching from 8 to 10 grams of cysts (dry weight) per day is also required.
Beginning the Mysid culture:
A starter culture of around 200 captive raised young adult Mysids is added to one of the 30-gallon brood aquariums. These are fed newly hatched Artemia nauplii ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œat libertyââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ twice a day. When they become sexually mature, their young are removed twice a day, just prior to each feeding. The young Mysids are housed in the ten gallon rearing aquariums at a density of between 1200 and 1300 per tank. A new rearing tank is started when the last one reaches that density. When all ten rearing tanks are filled, room for new baby Mysids is created by harvesting the oldest rearing tank and utilizing it as fish food. When the first tank of collected young Mysids reach 4 to 5 weeks of age, about 200 of them are used to set up the second 30-gallon brood aquarium. Continue collecting young from both brood tanks and then after another month or so, select another 200 young adult Mysids and use them to set up the third brood tank. The culture should now be at peak production. At some point, productivity in the first brood tank will start to decline as the Mysids reach old age. At that time, the old adult Mysids are removed, the brood tank cleaned and 200 young adults are selected from one of the rearing tanks and set up in the first brood tank. In this way, a constant, highly productive culture can be maintained.
Husbandry:
Despite their widespread use as pollution bioassay organisms, Mysids are not too demanding in terms of water quality (as long as the values remain within a reasonable range). No unusual mortality was noticed in tanks even when the ammonia concentration approached 1 ppm.
Average water quality for mysid culture tanks:
Temperature = 75 to 80 degrees F.
Salinity = 20 ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ 22ppt
pH = 8.2
Light = 75 foot-candles
Ammonia = 0.25 mg/l
Nitrite = 0.5 mg/l
