Food to grow out Brine Shrimp??

[gonereefin']

Hi all!!
I have searched everywhere for a recommended grow-out food for baby brine shrimp. There are a few "family receipts" out there but not really what I'm looking for. I have the Plankton Culture Manual 5th ed and it even doesn't recommend anything more than to use live food! So, would you recommend live plankton or would Instant algae do well too? Has anyone ever used the Tahitian Blend Instant algae? I really kind of hate dropping $75.00 dollars on Instant algae though (smallest amt available where I seen it) and I kinda like the paste stuff from Brine shrimp direct (?) but don't really want to go through the hassel of growing green water. So, bottom line, I just want a nutritious Artemia to feed my fish!
Suggestions very appreciated!!
Randy

 

[Anonymous]

I have used home grown phytoplankton to raise brine to adulthood.

I didn't really ever do this on purpose though, they just contaminated one of my phyto bottles, and as long as I was harvesting them, they never ate all the phyto. And if you are hatching baby brine, you may as well pick yourself up a cheap light source and go ahead and raise phyto, it's pretty easy once you get a culture.


I have also accidentally created a self sustaining population of brine shrimp when I was experimenting with outdoor rotifer culture. Apparently I had some rotifer culture water that got some brine eggs in it, and when I put this outside (the rotifers live on fallen leaves and bird poop and whatever falls in the bucket) after about a month I noticed full adult brine shrimp! They must have been surviving on the rotifer population that waxed and waned in the bucket! This only produced enough brine for a weekly treat for my fish, but it was pretty cool. I know the brine were reproducing in the bucket because I would see them in all sizes.

I must say though, as much as I like playing with stinking buckets of plankton water, raising brine to adulthood in any great numbers is a real headache.

 

[Anonymous]

You're not going to believe this, but in doing some research on Amyloodinium ocellatus I discovered that experiments have been done with Artemia nauplii using the protozoan as FOOD for the Artemia! Don't recollect if it was adult brine or larvae that were used for this, but it was research done for aquaculture in the Salton Sea. Outrageous electron scanning microscope shots of the velvet, too!

 

[Juck]

Laura,,, haha,, sounds like the stinking Daphnia bucket in my back yard,,, fish go nuts for them.

I had lousy luck raising adult brine past the first week or two.

 

[rayjay]

If you don't really want to get into any amount of work, don't try to raise live adult brine shrimp in any quantity. It's a fair bit of work.
I use Tahitian Blend from BSD for about the first week, and then use my "spirulina ball" for the rest of the grow out to adult.
If you have any questions beyond the information I have on my web site, feel free to contact me.
RAISING BRINE SHRIMP

 

[shalegac]

Is there any way to make the brine more nutritious?

 

[Anonymous]

Use selcon to "vitamin enrich" them.

 

[rayjay]

The adults can be fully gut loaded in about an hour, with whatever you choose to feed them; Selcon, Selco, or pure spirulina for examples.
I place the brine shrimp in a 2 litre ice cream container with an airline for aeration/water movement, and a few drops of food of choice mixed in the water (enough to make the water turbid) and after an hour to an hour and a half, I net them, rinse them in room temp fresh water, and then feed them to the fish.