Live Artemia (brine shrimp) - Thoughts?

[Fisher36]

Hi all,

Does anyone here have any experience with live adult brine shrimp aka artemia?
It's a wonderful live food for most fishies, but from what I'm gathering really hard to find on the West Coast...Of course you can always hatch your own, but it's a pain to grow them to adult size.

I'm actually talking to a distributor and weighing the possibility of bringing some around for rather cheap. This is not a sales pitch - I was just wondering if this is something you all would be interested in, and if there's enough demand for this, or if have any other thoughts about this subject.
Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!!

 

[cloak]

The LFS I usually frequent no longer carries live brine anymore, but I used to buy a half ounce almost every week or so. Not only did the fish enjoy these things, but the corals too. A couple spoonful of these at night really hit the spot.

If they were still around, I'd buy them.

 

[undbulsu]

My LFS carries them. I buy a cup or two each week

My LFS carries them. I buy a cup or two each week

I place them in a nalgene container with an airtube and put in phytoplankton.

Take out what I need and feed the fish/corals.

Sometimes I soak them in selcon

 

[Reef Frog]

My LFS carries them and sells a nice sized portion for only $1. It's s baseball or softball sized bag heavily packed. Hundreds & hundreds of shrimp.

They're nice to have around. They can be invaluable for getting a reluctant eater to feed in the QT. The fish get very excited in the presence of live food, and they are useful in training a fish reluctant to take frozen mysis by feeding them a mix of live brine & frozen mysis.

Not sure what you could sell them for in your market, but it might be tough to make a viable business out of it just selling to individual hobbyists. The shipping charges would be high because of water weight and the cost of packing materials for hobbyist sized portions as well. Maybe supplying numerous LFSs over a large region might be a viable business... Just not sure.

My LFS has committed to a large purpose built aquarium with a sand type filter. The LFS hasn't raised the price on them in years - I'm not sure how he can make money at $1 per portion. But I see plenty people buy them and he buys a new supply every week.

 

[snorvich]

Useful, but not a business.