brine shrimp and mysis shrimp

[produceb]

do brine shrimp and mysis shrimp alone have enough nutrional value to keep fish healthy?

[tecwzrd]

Are bananas and cheerios enough for you? Honestly both of us could survive but neither would be happy for very long. Just like any animal fish need nutritional foods from multiple sources.

See this post on feeding requirements of SW fish.

[produceb]

I think I could make it for some time on steak and reece's peanut butter cups.

[tecwzrd]

I'd last at least 4 months on that Main point is that brine shrimp have almost no nutritional value and it's best to feed a variety of foods (and/or use vitamins also).

[produceb]

thank you, this is all I have been able to get my cleaner wrasse to eat. He does eat like a pig thou, I have read they need to be eat more often than most fish. I willl try some other foods. I am debating holding a fresh killed bait fish in the tank by the tail to see if he will pick anything off the fish. Real cool fish, I want to do whatever to get him to survive.

[tecwzrd]

Cleaner wrasse will starve in a tank without parasites to feed off of. It may eat other stuff for a little while but most don't make it past a month or two in captivity. One of many fish best left in the ocean.

[melosu58]

I always compare the brine to twinkies for us. I would suggest a variety like flake, Frozen or even a blender mush that some folks make on this site.

[Ziggy953]

I agree with Melosu on the twinkie bit....I feed brine as a treat nothing more...pellet, flake, frozen and homemade are best!!

[produceb]

Thank you, are mysis the same in nutrional value as brine? I have read conflicting reports on these cleaner wrasse. I let a much larger golden cleaner wrasse go, because of he reports. I have heard the tiny type I have is much easier to keep. He eats the mysis shrimp, I will buy some more foods tomorrow to try with him.

[melosu58]

Mysis is much better than brine. But variety is the key. I`ve never been able to get a cleaner wrasse to live more than 4 months. I hope you have better results than me.

[chizzle]

Just to piggyback on the thread a little...because I think I've now confused myself...

Normally, if a LFS is selling live feeder shrimp its brine & not mysis, right? Mysis is normally only frozen? Or am I backwards? Sorry, like I said before, I think I confused myself.

[lando]

As mentioned...variety is the key. Just as important as feeding high-quality foods is using high-quality dietary suppliments. I recommend Selcon, Vita-Chem and Garlic extreme.

[rayjay]

I keep cleaner wrasses ONLY from Sri Lanka. I have no trouble with the cleaners from this source eating and surviving, and by the time I sell them to other hobbyists, they are eating multiple foods, like frozen brine, mysis, blood worms and also, spirulina flake food.
If I have trouble getting one to eat initially, I feed them ground up beef heart mush, ground appropriately sized for the size of the specific cleaner. Some small cleaners need a very small particle size at first.

Now for my biggest pet peeve, brine shrimp nutrition.
First though, let me say that I believe that one should feed many different foods to the tank, not just one or two, and one of them is brine shrimp, frozen and live.
The biggest misconception of brine shrimp nutrition comes from the different ways label information is presented. Most frozen brine shrimp list protein levels on the packaging, based on total WET WEIGHT content of the package which includes the packing fluids as well as the shrimp fluid as well.
Other frozen foods tend I think for the most part, to list their % levels based on DRY WEIGHT percentages.
With respect to live brine shrimp, the biggest problem is the retailer who many times does not feed the shrimp, or feeds little or inappropriate foods for them. By not feeding them, water changes are kept to a minimum because there are no fecal pellets being produced to decay and foul the water.
If you buy any, at least feed them something appropriate before feeding them to the fish. Spirulina is my favorite, especially the almost pure stuff.
Brine shrimp do indeed have decent levels of protein.
Many foods like spirulina flake food have protein levels around 45% dry weight percentages, but brine shrimp juveniles or adults have protein levels 50% to 62% for aquacultured brine, and 50% to 69% for wild caught brine shrimp, again given in dry weight percentages. These figures are for brine shrimp BEFORE being gut loaded, which can increase protein levels or fatty acid or diliver vitamins or medication to your fish.
This information comes from probably the best authority on brine shrimp in the world, the ARTEMIA REFERENCE CENTRE at the University of Ghent, who produce most of the factual information for the marine aquaculture industry that uses live brine shrimp as a part of the feeding regime to produce food like fish and shrimp for our tables.
Please check out the link below from the United Nations site, and for NUTRITION info, scroll down to section 4.4.1
CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO SECTION 4.0 ARTEMIA

[produceb]

thank you, my cleaner is a eating machine maybe just lucky but he started eating only tiny pieces of brine and mysis. but now will rip up a whole shrimp and eat it all.