Feeding Live Brine Shrimp

[mcescher]

I have recently read several places that adult Brine Shrimp have little nutritional value once they are in adult form. So the question I have is several fold:

I currently feed my fish (in a FOWLR tank) a mixture of a cube of Spirulina enriched Brine Shrimp, a cube of Mysis Shrimp, and a cube of Blood worms...all melted together and metered out of a mini squirt bottle kept in the refrigerator over the span of 2-3 days. I also throw in some sinking marine food pelletts and a flake or two of dried Spirulina every other day or so.

Is this a healthy main diet for a Valentinni Puffer, a Bi-color Blenny, and as a suplement to the diet of a Royal Green Mandarine (I regularly see him going after all three meaty foods)?

Also, would it be worth it to bother to raise the Brine to adulthood and feed them as Live foods to these fish...or is it more trouble than it's worth (nutrition-wise)?

Am I also introducing too much PHOS into my system by feeding these frozen packaged foods directly to my fish?...I have noticed lately some small blooms of rust colored algae. Should I rinse the above foods before feeding?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[jkalfsbeck]

If it were me I'd feed them very small amounts once nightly and I'd try to target feed your mandarin the mysis shrimp. I've had mine for 3 years on the hikari mysis shrimp. Just make sure all the food is gone in like 3-5 mins. If you still have it floating around 10+ mins. later i think that might be too much.

Also I'd stay away from the frozen food that has Gel Binder in it. It's nasty stuff especially in reef tanks. My skimmer goes nuts w/ food w/ gel binder. If your worried about the phosphates try adding a skimmer if you dont already have one. Thats one good way telling whether the food your putting into your tank is good or junk. If it goes crazy w/ skimmate then either you put too much in or too much junk in the food.

Also forgot to add from what I hear , brine shrimp is the same as if we ate potato chips. Mysis is way better.

HTH

 

[flamingonhot]

Raising brine for a food source is somewhat pointless. This is debatable but from recent studies brine shrimp have little to no nutritional value.
People say this isn't right if they are gut loaded, well were not talking about gut loaded are we? Alone adult brine have little nutrition, you add vitamins to anything and duh it's going to have nutrition.

When brine shrimp first hatch they have an egg sac that provides a lot of nutrition and fatty acids for the shrimp and whatever may eat it. Thats why they are a good food source for baby fish. After about 4 hours they loose a lot of they're egg sac and with it most of they're nutrition. After 24 hours it's totally gone and they develop mouths and completely developed digestive tracts.

They may be good as a snack but they have a very high water content so when something tries to get full it's hard. It's like trying to get full on grapes.

The only fish that can survive on a mainly brine shrimp diet are dwarf seahorses, even then though they still have to have egg sacs.

Even though they have spirulina and what not in them they still dont provide much nutrition. i'd say you can just leave it out all together or leave it as a snack.