Well....
Newly hatched brine shrimp is the tried and true method. And although I stated they do not eat phyto it was meant to be in response to using it as their sole means of nutrition. Adding live phyto to artemia concentrations seems to (depending on who you listen to) make some kind of difference. I know Rob Toonen is of the belief that they have some capability of processing phyto directly, and I while I'm not trying to split hairs, I prefer to hold onto the opinion that the ingestion of phyto can also occur using the bs nauplii as a carrier or host. However, to what extent phyto plays in their developement still seems to be an unsolved mystery. I certainly have no idea. And even then, it seems to make little difference for reasons I will soon state below.
In all honesty, there are so many limiting factors that I scarsely know where to start:
1. Lysomata Amboinensis fry are palegic and need to be kept is some form of suspension free of obstacles or impeedments that can damage their fragile skeletal structure. (this has led to researchers and the like using Kreisels or other similar structured specialty tanks that attempt to mimic an open ocean environment.) Just bouncing off the interior walls of a tank could possibly damage them beyond repair. Thus, you must ensure that whatever setup you decide to use it must be designed such that is allows them to navigate effortlessly along in a never-ending slow drift.
2. Their attached yolk sac seems capable of sustaining them anywhere from 24-36 hours so you could probably keep them alive with little effort on your part for 1-2 days. After that the clock begins ticking. This is where your choice of food and food concentrations become critical - too much and you have water quality issues. Too little and they will starve. Either way you lose and must start over.
3. Using synthetic salt seems to yield poorer results that using natural seawater. Some synthetics won't work at all and entire cultures have been wiped out just trying to do a water change.
4. Even keeping them alive for 5 or 6 or even 10 weeks is still no guarantee that you will see success. There is a final stage in their larval developement called the metamorphasis where they settle out of suspension and make the transition from palegic fry to juvenile shrimp. This is the hump that nearly no one can surpass. And those that do seem to be unable to duplicate their results with any real regularity. At best, those that have come close seem to do no better than to keep them alive until such time that they finally burnout from the absence of whatever it is (be it nutritional, homonal or environmantal) that singnals them to morph.
I wish you all the luck, but I still say you'll better off in the long run if you just put your feet up and enjoy a nice cold beer.
Brett
