Using Live Brine shrimp

lady becca

lady becca

Member
OK... Sometimes I feel really stupid.
I wanted to give my fish live brine shrimp.
So, I bought eggs, san fransico variety, and they hatched! Thought I was good to go...
Now I am reading that they need to be "rinsed" before putting them into my tank for food.
They are so blasted small, how do you rinse them?
I was also told never to use a pipette and suck them out of their container and add them because you don't want to add the water that they are raised in to your tank.
What do I do? How do I use them to feed my fish?
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
You should be able to find a "Brine Shrimp Net" at your LFS. It will be woven so tight that you can rinse your baby brine shrimp. The really good one have the hole perfectly sized so that eggs & egg pieces flow through the net but the baby brine shrimp do not.
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Great experiment for the kids :D
Test a quart old tank water for Nitrate, document the level. Toss in several hundred Brine shrimp eggs and aerate gently for 40 hours.
Test the Nitrate level again after they have hatched. ;) It will probably register above the scale of your test kit.
 
lesleybird

lesleybird

Active Member
Most fish stores sell live adult brine shrimp....may have to ask as a lot keep them in a back room. Baby brine shrimp are only good for feeding baby fish. You need the adult brine shrimp that are a few weeks old. You can do this yourself, but it is a real pain to have to fed the shrimp for weeks keeping their water clean while they grow. Lesley
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Brine shrimp reach adulthood in 4 or 5 weeks. They will eat anything of the appropriate size including Yeast, Diatoms, algae (small & planktonic), bacteria, powdered eggs, etc.
They are only as nutritious as what you feed them though so if you feed them junk like yeast then they are of no value to your fish.
 
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