Growing brine shrimp to adult size

[goldenpigeon]

hi all :D ,
i feel like doin something new at the moment and that is rearing up brine shrimp to adult size or atleast big enough for large discus to enjoy. i would just like some suggestions on what to do. eg. food, water parametres, heat and everythin else.

i would also like 2 know what has worked 4 every1 else.

lots of feed back would be great :D

David

[goldenpigeon]

any takers??? :?

David

[Merrilyn]

Hey David, yes I am raising brine shrimp to adulthood at the moment. I have them in an indoor three foot tank with water purchased from the local fish shop (trying to give them the best start) a small sponge filter and a heater set at 25 degrees. At the moment I feed them on commercial brine shrimp food, and allow algae to grow on the tank. Working,l but I really need to find a cheaper way of feeding them.

[goldenpigeon]

would algae wafers ground up into a powder work???

David

[Merrilyn]

It probably would. I need to do some research on it too. I was thinking they might eat crushed spirulina flakes too.

[goldenpigeon]

i am hoping to set up a spare 3 fter i have and dedicate it to brine shrimp. i just think it would be cool adding another adition to my fishes already expensive diet. lol

David

[goldenpigeon]

does any1 else no what to feed growing brine shrimp (without spendin allot o money)?

David

[Ben]

Hi guys!
I was keeping and growing my own brine shrimp for ages but i needed the tank to do it! My brine shrimp for doing so well i could see them breeding!
i had them in a standard 3 foot tank.
The little trick i used was to buy the spiralina tablets, they cost arounf $18- for 60 tablets, each day i would open the capsule and add 1 cup of boiling water and dislove the spiralina in the water and feed every morning.
do a water chnage every 4 days and i kept the temp high, at 26.c but there are diffenent types of shimps, some like colder water other like warmer water.
my conclusion was it was fun while it lasted but it does cost some money, eg,
good quality sea salt ( they die in normal type salt)
heating ( i live in victoria)
power (using a air stone and the cost of water)
feed the little guys,(spiralina)
and finally the eggs.

i was just hatching the eggs and trying toseperate them from the eggs shell( some thing to try is decapsulating)

i hope this helps a little,
any more questions please ask!,

cheers,
ben

[goldenpigeon]

thanx prodigy i live in sunny sunny QLD so heating is not that important at the moment. can you tell me where u get spirulena from? have you tried just powdered algae wafers? did it work?

David

[Ben]

i was buying the spiralina capsules from my local health food shop. they would be your best bet, but do have a look in the healthfood aisle in safeway/ coles.

i did not try the wafers, but do give it a go.
my thoughts though, it might be a bit large for the sea monkeys as they are filters and the food they consume needs to be of very fine microns.

cheers,
Ben

[Ben]

i was just reminiscing when i lived in Noosa, how my electricity bill would be soooo much cheaper!!!!

[goldenpigeon]

:lol: :lol: :lol: LOL TOO TRUE :lol: :lol: :lol:

thanx for that info.

at the moment the gold coast water ph has dropped down to about 6.5 as of about 6 months ago :D so im not doing aythin to the ph i love it :lol: i have a 680L display tank and it was getting very hard about a year and a half ago because i was using pH down by the truck load (not litterally) and not at once. the profit from my pocket money was startin to thin out lol :lol:
my advice come up here for a holiday and youll get hooked (on the gold coast that is) :D

David

[goldenpigeon]

how many times a day do u feed them?

David

[Ben]

I was feeding them just once a day. In the morning so they could graze all day.
the only real problem you have to watch is that the water does not get foul, as this will kill them off really quickly!
The extra advanatge of spiralina as some of it settles on the tank floor it kinda sticks together so its easy to siphon off. Do this when its dark, and shine a tourch in one area of the tank and the sea monkeys will be attrached to the light source , so this means a million of them wont get sucked away!

cheers

[goldenpigeon]

good idea! i heard that they love the light and are attracted to it.

David

[Littlefish]

I used to keep a saltwater tub in a shady spot in the back yard to grow brine shrimp in.

Food was produced by placing several tubs of fresh water out in the sun where algae soon turned the water green. The green water was then strained through a piece of cloth, the cloth was inverted in to the brine shrimp tub and given a shake. The shrimp grew well on it. I guess they might have started breeding in time, although I tended to feed them to my fish before that happened.

It's a bit of messing around, but you get the joy of DIY. On the downside, the leader of the opposition said I was making the yard look like Steptoe & Son, and the neighbours suspected me of doing something nasty in the bushes. Sigh....

Fred :roll:

[Merrilyn]

LOL Fred. Few people understand our obsession with all things fishy :?

[phishphood]

Just to add, I buy my brine shrimp eggs from Salt Lake Shoreline (http://www.saltlakeshoreline.com/)--at least in the states it seems to be the cheapest to buy eggs from--I'm not sure if it is cost effective for you guys, but I find a good big canister (70%) is pretty cheap rather than buying the little packets at the LFS. Also, they sell a huge canister of spirulina there, that's what I use to feed my brine shrimpies :)