Enriching baby brine shrimp

[RoscoPColtrane]

For those that have hatched baby brine shrimp, do you enrich or gut load them before feeding? Is there anything easy and cheap that I can use to accomplish this?

I'm also looking for a local source of eggs if you know of one... thanks for the help.

Mike

 

[NirvanaFan]

I've always just bought my brine shrimp eggs online (from Florida Aqua Farms). I add a tiny bit of phyto to the hatching water, but I don't know if it does anything. If you are feeding bbs, do it as soon after they hatch as possible.

 

[RoscoPColtrane]

Thanks for the help. I may try to do a mix of freshly hatched BBS and some selcon enriched 12-18hr BBS, I was hoping to avoid having to start phyto cultures. I still have two weeks to get all my supplies together...

 

[acdraindrps]

I don't think you are gaining anything by enriching with phyto.

 

[RoscoPColtrane]

Chris what about selcon, worth while?

 

[NirvanaFan]

I don't think you are gaining anything by enriching with phyto.

Brine shrimp will eat phyto. You may not be gaining much by feeding it to them, but it certainly won't hurt.

 

[tmz]

For the seashorse fry I raised. I still have after 2 years or so. I netted out the artemia nauplii sortly after the hatch to ensure most of the yolk sack was unused as it is nutritious. Then based on advice from Mark Klier I placed them in a small cup of tank water added several drops of selcon and let them soak overnight in the refrigerator. Refrigeration slows their metabolism so they don't mature quickly and use up all of the yolk.

 

[RoscoPColtrane]

Thanks Tom, that sounds like a great idea.

 

[block head]

bbs are cheap and easy. most of the roc stores carry the eggs. i've used 40oz w dirty tank water. you can monkey w /airlines and hatch kits. i didn't see a major difference.

 

[Paul B]

Feed them as soon as you can after they hatch and they need no enriching, you also can't enrich them as they don't eat as long as they have a yoke sack. The yoke sack is much better than Selcon anyway so just use them right away. I hatch them every day and have for decades.

 

[acdraindrps]

If I used anything to enrich the bbs I would pick selcon. Like Paul said though, if you use them early enough, the yolk sack is pretty nutritious in itself. IMO don't waste the time or money.

I thought you were supposed to feed bbs yeast if you wanted adult brine...?

 

[NirvanaFan]

They'll eat yeast too. And rotifers, and pretty much anything they can fit in their mouths. I accidentally get brine shrimp in my rotifer culture all the time. They grow big enough and will reproduce.

 

[tmz]

Paul,

I vaguely recall from a thread a while ago that you have a hatchery that helps separate out the shells. Am I remembering correctly. If so, would you share it again.

Anyone else have an easy way to do this or to decapsulate them.

I should have noted that I hatched them every day as well. Catching them shortly after the hatch and putting some in the fridge made it easier to feed fry several times during the day without the artremia nauplii quickly consuming the yolk sack. Some of the selcon may or may not have been absorbed but it couldn't hurt.

 

[Paul B]

I thought you were supposed to feed bbs yeast if you wanted adult brine...?

You are, but they don't eat anything wlile they still have a yolk sack which is about a day.
You can raise them on nothing but yeast. When I raised seahorses I would grow the shrimp that way.

The brine shrimp hatchery is just two boxes glued together with a hole in between them that you could close with some sort of a door. I have a sliding door on mine. You put the eggs on the right (dark) side and airate for a day. Then slide open the door and cover the dark side with a black cover. In a few minutes all the shrimp swim through the hole to the lighted side and the shells stay on the dark side. Close the door and either suck out the shrimp or open a valve which is not in this picture. Here I am using that small tube on the left side as a valve. I just lower it and it is connected into the bottom of the lighted side so I can just let the shrimp go into my reef.
After each hatch I rinse it out and start again. I keep the next batch of eggs in saltwater before I put them in the device so they hatch in a couple of hours and I get shrimp every day.
Every couple of weks you need to clean it with a little bleach or bacteria will grow and the eggs will not hatch very well.

 

[NirvanaFan]

That is a really nice design Paul. Do you aerate the eggs in the dark side?

 

[acdraindrps]

Thats a great idea, Paul!

 

[Paul B]

Yes I airate the eggs

 

[tmz]

Here is more information from another thread and a link to the World Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, which covers brine shrimp culturing methods, nutritional profiles and enrichment procedures.
The selcon enrichment is recommended to increase lipid content for nauplii and occurs via bio encapsulation not digestion. They soak it up like a piece of paper does ink.

The link:

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/W3732E/w3732e0p.htm#b1-4.4.1. Nutrit

The post by GreenBean:

From the FAO-"Artemia juveniles and adults are used as a nursery diet not only for their optimal nutritional value but also for energetic advantages as well. For example, when offered large Artemia instead of freshly-hatched nauplii, the predator larvae need to chase and ingest less prey organisms per unit of time to meet their food requirements."

%DW Protein- 49.7-62.5; Lipids- 9.4-19.5; Ash 9.0-21.6

"...high levels of essential fatty acids can easily and very quickly be attained in the Artemia biomass by applying simple bio-encapsulation; in less than one hour the digestive tract of the brine shrimp can be filled with a HUFA enrichment product [SELCO], boosting the (n-3) HUFA content from a low level of 3 mg.g-1 DW up to levels of more than 50 mg.g-1 (see 4.4.2.7.)."


_

 

[NirvanaFan]

Excellent post Tom. I have a question though. How quickly do the Brine shrimp get rid of the Selco from their digestive tract? If their digestive tract can be totally full in an hour, does most of it has to come out in a similar amount of time?

 

[tmz]

Don't know how long it would take for them to incorporate it into tissue growth.I think they just stop encapsulating it when full. Besides you wan't to use artremia nauplii shortly after the hatch to get the benefits of the yolk sack.
I think Mark Klier's suggestion to me to catch em shortly after they hatch and put them in a cup of hatching water with a few drops of selcon in the refrigerator is consistent with the gist of FAO info and gives the benefits of the selco encapsulation and the yolk sack.