Feeding Live Brine Shrimp to Apistogramma Agassizii's

[snapper]

Guys,

I have been feeding my apistogramma agassizi's with frozen brine shrimp and I just picked up some live brine shrimp. Should I strain the brine shrimp prior to putting them into the tank for a feeding? I am still kind of new with these fish and never fed any ciclids live brine shrimp. Any suggestions on what to do or not to do, is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Bev N]

Hey there,

Strain them using a brine shrimp net and rinse very well. Only do this with what your going to feed right away as the rest have to stay in salt water.

It's been so long since I've used them I'm not sure how long they will last. I'm sure someone else will be able to tell you that.

 

[leamos]

Should really enrich the brine shrimp before feeding as brine shrimp (over 24hrs old) are very nutritionally poor. Put the required amount of shrimp in a small container of saltwater and add a product like this - http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/c8/Super-SELCO-c52.html or feed them some spirulina flakes ground up and mixed up as a paste, leave them 12 - 24hrs to feed up then strain and use. Otherwise you may as well be feed your apistos cardboard. Frozen brine have been enriched prior to freezing to over come this

 

[dw1305]

keeping Adult Brine shrimp

If you want to grow them, they hatch OK in "sea water" saline water, but they like it about twice as salty (35 - 40ppt)to grow in. I've tried twice, once without any success at all, and once a qualified success, using filtered sterilized sea-water, (evaporated down to the appropriate salinity) and extremely expensive cultured diatoms. I can't recommend it, unless you like a challenge.

I now keep micro and grindal worms, it's a lot easier.

<http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/What-are-the-guidelines-for-culturing-brine-shrimp-c119.html>

cheers Darrel

 

[electric eel]

while its true that they don't have much food value unless you gut load them(not worth the effort in my opinion)i have saved a few angels that were kind of bloated and had been off their food for about a week or more(they wouldn't eat anything else but went to town on the adult brine shrimp)i read that they have somewhat of a laxative effect.the fish recovered and acted normally after this.they are useful also ,as any other live food that the fish have to chase,in stimulating breeding behavior.i used to buy some ocassionally just to give my fish something to chase.they seemed to enjoy it.

 

[james595]

I hatch out a lot of bbs at work. We get a very high hatch rate at 5ppt reef salt. I reccomend using vigorous aeration to aid in hatching and heat to speed up the process. A conical hatcher is key. Great salt lake brine shrimp seem to be much better than sanfransisco bay. We do not grow them out at work, but it has happened accidentally at salinities of 15ppt. When put into fresh H20 for one they sink, and they die within 12-24hrs. An ideal food would be a concentrated algae paste. I am currently growing out some SFBs to feed my apistos I will let you know how it goes.

 

[electric eel]

they can eat powdered spirulina.i bought my son one of the "sea monkey" kits not realizing that they were artemia.the few that hatched lived for a while.the food they send you is powdered spirulina.they can't eat till they reach the second instar stage though cause they don't have mouths until then.you don't need to use marine grade salt either.any noniodized salt will do.i have used table salt,canning salt and ice cream salt(i figure the cheaper the better as long as it works)i always used aquarium salt until i saw al anderson give a lecture where he said he used the cheapest non-iodized salt he could find.al's been breeding fish since the mid-sixties.