enriching brine shrimp?

[demonboy279]

how? what do you do to enrich the brine shrimp?
ive read about people doing it but i dont quite get the whole process of what your supposed to do.

thanks

 

[Landshark18]

From what i understand, enriching or 'gutloading' brine shrimp involves adding vitamin rich additives to whatever water they are being stored in. By doing this the brine take in the nutirients throught the water and when they are fed to your fish they get it too

 

[demonboy279]

what would i use to add to the water? what works? any homemade recipes? store bought?

thanks

 

[shoddyk]

I pour a cup of homemade phytoplankton in my freshly hatched brine shrimp about 6 hours before I feed them to my tank. It fattens them up some with something other than just water.

 

[demonboy279]

i dont have no phytoplankton but ive been thinking about getting some.

i read somewhere that you can use bakers yeast... is that true?

 

[rayjay]

Brine shrimp can be gut loaded from about the 24 hour point onward in their lives.
Since brine shrimp feed on particulate matter in their water, one can feed them appropriately sized particles of protein, vitamins, or huffas, in order to increase their nutrient value.
Newborn nauplii are rich in huffas, low in protein, loosing their huffas as they feed on their egg sack, but gaining in protein levels as they grow through juvenile stages to adult stages.
For greatest value as nauplii to feed huffa content to your fish, they need to be fed immediately after hatching out. From that point on, they consume the egg sack decreasing the levels of huffas your fish will receive.
It takes about 24 hours to gut load nauplii after they develop mouths at the second instar stage, (about 24 hours old), and less time as they grow, to the point that as adults, they can be gut loaded in not much over an hours time.
Because it takes so long to gut load the nauplii, it's best to gut load them in 12 hour stages, changing the water and food for the last 12 hours. (nutrients degrade quickly so need to be refreshed)
I feed my brine shrimp with Tahitian Blend, a cryopaste mixture, so they can be fed at any time as they are constantly gut loaded with the cryopaste.
Feeding Selco type products increases the Huffa content of the brine, and feeding spirulina increases the protein levels.

What are you feeding brine shrimp to, and what size of brine are you intending to use?

 

[demonboy279]

i have a false perc and a true percula clownfish and a curly cue anemone that came on my rock. im trying to figure out the best way to have the brine shrimp when i feed them like size wise and feeding them.

 

[rayjay]

The best feeding regime for your tank would be to use several foods, as in frozen brine, mysis, blood worms etc, and spirulina flake food, with possibly using shrimp pellets.
There is no specific need for feeding the live brine shrimp to those fish.
By feeding a variety of foods, you get a full range of nutrients to them, as not all foods have the same nutrients, or at least the same levels of the nutrients.
If you still want to feed live brine in addition to other foods, it would be best to buy adult brine and gut load them with spirulina.
You can use spirulina flake food and crush the flake up and place a pile of it in the centre of a piece of dense cloth, (like heavy jersey material) fold up the outer edges of the cloth and twist the cloth to form a "ball" of spirulina in the cloth.
Place the spirulina ball in a mug of salt water in the refrigerator overnight, and then you can massage the spirulina ball until it begins to "fog" the water the shrimp are in.
After the adult brine shrimp have fed for an hour or so, net them out, rinse them in fresh water, and then feed them to your fish.

 

[demonboy279]

ok that makes sence.. thanks