Instead of buying dead or frozen brine shrimp at the pet store, would it be feasable to just grow your own in a 2.5 gallon or 5 gallon tank? Or would the shrimp end up growing too fast? This would be to feed the fish and live corals. Forgive me as you can see i'm still learning.
Growing brine shrimp.
- Thread starter EDKHosting
- Start date
They're kind of a pain to grow to adulthood but it can be done. It's pretty messy and labor intensive. I've seen people grow them out in used tank water in 50-75 gallon tanks sitting out on their patio, but not in large numbers.
If all you want to do is to hatch baby brine from their eggs, that's pretty easy.
Here's a good book on culturing live foods:
http://reefs.org/library/reading/livefood/livefood.html
It goes over culturing phytoplankton, rotifers, brine, mysis, amphipods, daphnia, etc.
Our monthly publication Advanced Aquarist has a number of good articles on growing your own live foods. Head over to http://advancedaquarist.com/index/ and click on the "The Breeder's Net (Frank Marini)(Martin Moe)" link.
hth
Shane
If all you want to do is to hatch baby brine from their eggs, that's pretty easy.
Here's a good book on culturing live foods:
http://reefs.org/library/reading/livefood/livefood.html
It goes over culturing phytoplankton, rotifers, brine, mysis, amphipods, daphnia, etc.
Our monthly publication Advanced Aquarist has a number of good articles on growing your own live foods. Head over to http://advancedaquarist.com/index/ and click on the "The Breeder's Net (Frank Marini)(Martin Moe)" link.
hth
Shane
I have invested a few years into the pursuit of raising brine shrimp to adult. It is a labour intensive task, fraught with low yields, and not really worth doing if I could buy live brine around here.
For a description of how I'm raising them, with pics of my operation, click on
BRINE SHRIMP
For a description of how I'm raising them, with pics of my operation, click on
BRINE SHRIMP
This seems to contradict what people here seem to be saying, but I have a self-sustaining colony of brine shrimp in my 125 gallon. All I did was periodically put some eggs into the tank shortly after it initially cycled with live rock, and withing a couple of months I had hundreds all over the place. They stay in the shadows and caleurpa during the day, and they are all over the tank at night.
Now I have 6 fish in the tank, and there is no hint that the population has been affected.
Now I have 6 fish in the tank, and there is no hint that the population has been affected.
Cow, that's really rare event. I too has been raising artemia myself for some time, and I agree with the other 2, It is labor intensive. It would be much more economical if you can do it on large scale. The labor output is the same if you are doing it in small batches versus a few hundred gallons.
My problem is trying to keep them fed and not fouling the water. In small scale farming, water gets bad much quicker then in large scale farming. I think this is why so many of us failed and end up buying commercial adult artemia.
My problem is trying to keep them fed and not fouling the water. In small scale farming, water gets bad much quicker then in large scale farming. I think this is why so many of us failed and end up buying commercial adult artemia.
hi.a self-sustaining colony of brine shrimp in my 125 gallon. ... after it initially cycled with live rock
They are not brine shrimp, but a close relative. Many reefers have the similar mysis shrimp colony when live rock is used.
The frozen stuff is the PE mysid shrimp. The one's in your tank is tropical version, actually, a close relative, but it's not brine shrimp.
Look in the picture of "artemia" versus "mysis". The differences will be obvious if you have both pic in front of you.[/code]
Look in the picture of "artemia" versus "mysis". The differences will be obvious if you have both pic in front of you.[/code]
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