Rearing Live Food

[MediaOne]

Like many aquarists on this board, I am returning to a natural method of filtering my aquarium. I recently installed a 50 gallon refugium on my 90g reef, complete with a DSB, Caulerpa and mangroves. After a few months the refugium has taken off, and my 90 gallon looks amazing (water quality is at an all-time high!).

Now I want to get into rearing live food for my fish. More specifically, I want to learn about rearing Mysis shrimp. I have read that some people have them reproducing in their refugiums and would like to know if there is a way of introducing them etc.

Any help on rearing ANY live food would be awesome, thanks!

 

[danmhippo]

Well, I've heard mysis rearing and production is really not cost effective. It's the combination of both wild harvesting and controlled culturing that pays off. Again, I would assume it has to be a large scale operation like PE is doing to make it economically sound.

You may want to turn to phytoplankton production instead. Using phytoplankton to feed rotifers which also feeds brine shrimps.

I am still trying ways to culture saltwater ghostshrimps using backyard tubs and equipment. But I am stumped as how I can prevent adult shrimp devouring their eggs and newly hatched shrimps.

 

[Anonymous]

The fauna kit that I got from Inland Aquatics included mysis shrimp. Both juvenille and adults. They reproduce fairly well and I have seen tiny little bugs in my main tank since adding the kit. I have know way of knowing if the tiny little bugs were baby mysis, ampipods, or cocopeds. Either way, its a good thing!

My fuge is only about 3 months old. Maybe someone else knows a way to make them grow faster?

Louey

 

[danmhippo]

BTW, it's good to see your tank is back on it's feet after so much problems you have been through with it.

You should be proud of yourself!

 

[Greg Hiller]

Mediaone,

IMO, raising marine algae and rotifers to feed to a tank is not worth the effort. I raise them to growout my clownfish, but I've never seen any significant benifit to the tanks when I add extra rotifers or microalgae directly to a tank. Raising marine mysis shrimp in an intensive manner is quite difficult (I tried). There is a species of tropical marine mysis shrimp that lives in nearly everyone of my reef tanks. They are very easy to get started. It only takes a small inoculum from someone elses tank. Most well established tanks have them. They are quite easy to distinguish from other critters with the naked eye. My pipefish hunt all day long for them, and largely get enough nutrition from them (although I've also trained them to eat frozen mysis).

 

[MediaOne]

What about this, I just got a little Brine Shrimp hatchery today from a store (I know they are easy to make but I just want to "set it and forget it"). Anyway, I have heard that I can enrich them with Selco and apparently even using DT's to feed them helps to enrich them and make them better for my fish. What are your thoughts on that?

If I enrich brine shrimp all the time with DT's and Selco, I probably don't need to vary their diet as much as I do. Is that correct logic?

Either way, my first batch will hatch soon so atleast it will be fun to see how my fish react to live brine shrimp for a change.

 

[Louis Z]

Mediaone I too looked for that info- I found out that Jay Hemdal (aq. curator at Toledo Zoo) published the process in Seascope vol. 16 Fall of 1999. I called seascope and they sent me a copy. Come to find out that the same article is in Seahorse.org . It does sound intensive- phyto to feed BS to feed mysis. If its just to feed your tankmates then I think another Tank would suffice. If its fish culture or more -I do believe the intensive process is worth it. As for danmhippos response I think he is right - leave it to PE to do it commercial. PE uses a freshwater mysis (I Think) called Mysis Relicta. I dont know if they actually culture or if they just harvest. Mysis Relicta was added to some lakes in Canada to become food for salmon( I think). Apparently some of these lakes were so deep that the mysis in their natural habit descended to the bottom during the day and out of reach for the salmon fry and surfaced at night to outcompete and thus further endanger the salmon's existence. To danmhippo have you tried using a screen like they use for livebearers - let the larvae drop into another tank and proceed from there? I know that you would have to have many tanks than just one tank outside and that you would have to search for eggcarrying adults - very time consuming. Are you thinking of selling or just to feed some finicky fish. To Greg H. I really dont know how hard it is, but I think that we should all start trying to raise live foods. What may not show a difference to one person may benefit others. I do believe that rotifers are not the complete nutritional answer to our needs yet in commercial hatcheries it is. Your mysis sounds great that it reproduces that way - maybe we should start having live food swaps. The better to have such a diversity. The mysis that I see raised for toxicity labs is Americamysis bahia. Yet there are probably thousands- some probably easier to raise than others. I saw reference by F. Buskey at UT-Port Aransas as to a different mysis he was using in his in-situ research. His work looks at copepods as being a food source. Yes that too requires work yet it may keep rotifers and BS out of the loop-thus leaving phyto and pods to rear as food. Further the copepods raised could benefit baby pipefish and other organisms. I have read that 5% of coral food is phyto I wonder how much copepods contribute to their diet. When I set up my first saltwater tank I hope that I can look to yall for some of these to add to my refugium. I hope that this thread continues so as to pool our resources and experiences to better our hobby. Louis Z.

 

[sMARTY]

I have had them living and reproducing in my overflows and refugium. I assume that they came in on the LR

 

[danmhippo]

Louis, Yes, I did thought about it. However, to experiment production, I must find or be able to make one myself, a screen box big enough to hold about 500 shrimps. Place 6-10 of these cages side by side should yield enough for continuous production. I am not a very articulate guy and rely on others to do the cage design for me. It is in process.

 

[Louis Z]

Danmhippo - I am curious as to how you got your starter cultures. Are they Pacific in nature. Or did they originate from the Florida side. How can you tell if they are saltwater in nature v.s. freshwater. Or is there a difference. As to the nets have you tried window screening and pvc pipes - should be cheap and and easy to construct? As far as the containers go can you dig up your yard and use pondliners? Thanks Louis Z.

 

[danmhippo]

Mine are from coastal water of FL. Bought the starter culture from Sachs Mariculture. www.aquaculturestore.com