Brine Shrimp

[lessthanlights]

I’m interested in trying to feed my fish and coral baby brine shrimp. Is there any reason I can’t just dump decapsulated eggs into the tank and let nature do it's thing? The only down side I can think of is an increased bioload from unhatched eggs.

[lessthanlights]

One more question- Can live brine shrimp supplement a mandarin goby’s diet?

[michaeldaly]

The eggs will probably never hatch as they need to be kept in suspension and your protein skimmer will take them out.

Yes live brine will supplement the mandarins diet.

[chrisstie]

From my understanding brine is I don't know.. like chocolate to humans? We love it and its delcious but it has little nutritional value :(

Mashing up mysid is great - and im learning the true meaning of it with my tank now :)

[ADA33]

Brine shrimp is a healthy diet if fed to the tank 1 or 2 days after hatching. After that I agree with (chrisstie)

[rayjay]

First of all, YES, you can add DECAPPED cysts to your tank to feed your corals. It is probably the best way to do it as the nutrient value starts dropping as soon as they hatch out.
Hopefully most will be consumed before hatchout which probably will occur 12 to 18 hours after putting in the tank if they last that long.
Nutrient value of the brine shrimp nauplii deteriorate rapidly as the instar I stage feeds off the egg sack as it has no mouth or anus to be able to be fed. The nutrient is basically a little protein but a lot of fatty acids.
Around a day after hatchout, the second instar stage appears and now they can feed but to have much value should be gut loaded either with a fatty acid booster like Selco/Selcon, or with a product like spirulina. Unfortunately it takes about 24 hours for nauplii to gut load and the preferred method is to do it in 2 stages. Place them in a gut loading medium for 12 hours, and after that time, do a water change and replace the gut loading material. Reason being, what ever you are using to gut load, begins deteriorating very fast, and looses it's value, especially products like Selco/Selcon.
As the brine mature they gut load faster, so that live adults will gut load in about one hour.
As brine shrimp grow, the nutrient profile changes so that the initial high fatty acid levels and low protein levels, switch to high protein levels and low fatty acid levels. (pre gut loaded that is)
Contrary to what has become brine shrimp lore, live adult brine shrimp are nutritious, like almost 60% protein as dry weight measure before gut loading, so it just takes more of them than some other foods.
As to the Mandarin, a few will eat brine shrimp but most won't so don't get your hopes up.
For the most complete information available on brine shrimp, go to:
CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO SECTION 4.0 (http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/W3732E/w3732e00.htm)
I think the nutritional properties are in section 4.4.1 if that's all you're interested in.

[FelipeBastos]

Rayjay,

great response. I wish more folks truly understood the intricacies of brine shrimp. They can be quite nutritious, even when adults, so as long as you gut load them. I feed my seahorses enriched brine and they are all healthy as er..... a horse. :-)

Ciao,

Felipe