found this on google and thought it was interesting. thoughts?
"There are a lot of misconception about brine shrimp and one is that they are nutrition-less. That is false.
Brine shrimp grown from GSL cysts actually have more protein in them than most of the foods that you feed the fish. They are low in the fatty acid profile as juveniles and adults though. This can be solved by enrichment with products like the selco/selcon emulsions, or with the powdered Algamac 3050 which I prefer.
When hatched, the nauplii have a high fatty acid level because of the nutrient in the egg sack, but as the egg sack is depleted, the fatty acid level drops. As they grow the protein level increases as the fatty acid profile drops.
The nauplii have an incomplete digestive tract when hatched but as they moult to the second instar stage, they can then begin eating. It just takes a long time at that point for them to fully enrich with 24 hours being the ideal, but many find 12 hours to be acceptable. As they grow, the enrichment time drops to the point adults can be fully enriched in four hours, but many only do it for an hour to an hour and a half.
For the greatest amount of artemia information see the United Nations FAO website, Manual on the Production and Use of Live Food for Aquaculture.
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/W3732E/w3732e00.htm Scroll down to section 4.0 Artemia for the whole article.
For the chart on Protein levels, see section 4.4.1 table 4.4.1. The levels given are BEFORE enrichment is done.
That being said, mysid shrimp and the fresh water cousins, mysis, do have slightly higher nutrient profiles, however, they can not be produced in any meaningful numbers in the times that brine shrimp can be produced and the amount of work is significantly higher for that lower yield.
Same thing will apply with frozen, the mysis will be a little better than the brine.
If you note on the packages, frozen brine always states their percentage of protein in wet weight percentages, where mysis a lot of times gives theirs in dry weight percent with some being done in wet weight percent.
It can be very misleading if you compare a dry weight to a wet weight percent, making the mysis EXTREMELY high, when in fact, they are only slightly higher.
Just imagine you take for instance, your best flake food with a given percent that the package will always report dry weight percentage. Now, drop that flake food into some salt water and let it soak up the water.
Now, calculate the WET weight percentage and you will now have a VERY low percentage of any nutrient listed.
This perhaps is part of the misconception that brine shrimp have no nutrition." -rayjay
"There are a lot of misconception about brine shrimp and one is that they are nutrition-less. That is false.
Brine shrimp grown from GSL cysts actually have more protein in them than most of the foods that you feed the fish. They are low in the fatty acid profile as juveniles and adults though. This can be solved by enrichment with products like the selco/selcon emulsions, or with the powdered Algamac 3050 which I prefer.
When hatched, the nauplii have a high fatty acid level because of the nutrient in the egg sack, but as the egg sack is depleted, the fatty acid level drops. As they grow the protein level increases as the fatty acid profile drops.
The nauplii have an incomplete digestive tract when hatched but as they moult to the second instar stage, they can then begin eating. It just takes a long time at that point for them to fully enrich with 24 hours being the ideal, but many find 12 hours to be acceptable. As they grow, the enrichment time drops to the point adults can be fully enriched in four hours, but many only do it for an hour to an hour and a half.
For the greatest amount of artemia information see the United Nations FAO website, Manual on the Production and Use of Live Food for Aquaculture.
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/W3732E/w3732e00.htm Scroll down to section 4.0 Artemia for the whole article.
For the chart on Protein levels, see section 4.4.1 table 4.4.1. The levels given are BEFORE enrichment is done.
That being said, mysid shrimp and the fresh water cousins, mysis, do have slightly higher nutrient profiles, however, they can not be produced in any meaningful numbers in the times that brine shrimp can be produced and the amount of work is significantly higher for that lower yield.
Same thing will apply with frozen, the mysis will be a little better than the brine.
If you note on the packages, frozen brine always states their percentage of protein in wet weight percentages, where mysis a lot of times gives theirs in dry weight percent with some being done in wet weight percent.
It can be very misleading if you compare a dry weight to a wet weight percent, making the mysis EXTREMELY high, when in fact, they are only slightly higher.
Just imagine you take for instance, your best flake food with a given percent that the package will always report dry weight percentage. Now, drop that flake food into some salt water and let it soak up the water.
Now, calculate the WET weight percentage and you will now have a VERY low percentage of any nutrient listed.
This perhaps is part of the misconception that brine shrimp have no nutrition." -rayjay
