Feeding Frozen Brine Shrimp

[sprout18]

I was looking up information on our fancy guppies (since petsmart didn't really seem to know anything) and it says we should feed them brine shrimp occasionally. So of course I went and bought some for them. Know the question is - how often is occasionally? We were thinking once a week but is that too often? Also they come in squares but are these squares too big for 3 guppies (there are also 2 ghost shrimp in there)? Anything else I should know about feeding them these frozen brine shrimp? Thanks so much.

 

[neilanh]

Brine shrimp really don't hold a whole lot of nutritional value, although the fish do love them. A few times a week isn't going to hurt, but like I said, no real value in it, unless you're going to do Live cultures, then there is some benefit.

You can cut the squares up and not have to use up a whole square since you don't need to feed that much.

To feed it, just let it thaw in some tank water and dump it in.

 

[bs6749]

Brine shrimp (not even the spirulina loaded brine shrimp...regular brine shrimp) have more crude protein and slightly less fat than frozen bloodworms for example. Brine shrimp aren't a great staple and neither are frozen bloodworms. Variety is key and you should look for a high quality flake or pellet (probably flake for guppies) to be the mainstay of their diet. You can feed brine shrimp at every feeding if you wanted to but it wouldn't be nutritionally sound for your fish. You should feed them brine shrimp no more than once per day and feed them flake 1-2 times along with another food if you only feed flake once per day.

The ghost shrimp will also eat the brine shrimp. You could cut the cube into 4 and feed over several days. Spirulina loaded brine shrimp is more nutritional, costs more, and isn't necessary. Get a good flake and you'll be fine. OSI Marine Flake would be a good one since it contains a higher level of protein than the freshwater variety. Another would be Tetra Flake or Ocean Nutrition.

 

[timwag2001]

are brine shrimp and blood worms sterilized somehow when packaged? is there a risk of introducing parasites and other disease to the tank when feeding other than flake?

 

[bs6749]

Hikari brand products go through a triple sterilization process. A guy I know on another forum spoke with someone that evaluates Hikari's stuff and he said that they have never found any pathogen after their sterilization process. They use microscopes and other methods to look for these pathogens and in many years (10-15 or more) they haven't found a single thing wrong with their product as far as carrying diseases.

Other brands may sterilize the product or they may not. All in all, Hikari can certainly be trusted. I have used this product and recommend it. Currently I am using Oregon Desert brine shrimp as well as bloodworms and have heard great things about that. So far so good. I've never heard of anyone having issues with Oregon Desert products.

Freeze dried bloodworms are "flash frozen" and this is somewhat of a sterilization process from what I have heard.

There is always some risk of introducing a pathogen when feeding anything. That risk can be nearly eliminated by using products that have been sterilized. You can certainly introduce a pathogen from flake, pellets, whatever else you may feed not only from frozen foods. Actually, frozen foods are one of the safer foods to feed. Feeding live foods carries more of a risk but they hold more nutritional value more often than not. It's a trade-off really.