If I have a five gallon elassoma tank with a smaller breeding tank alongside it, and the fish are also being fed infusoria (from decaying leaves), frozen food, and baby ramshorn snails, how often do I need to hatch artemia, and how much should be hatched each time?
How much artemia to hatch at once, and how often?
Started by
Guest_Joshaeus_*
, Aug 31 2013 06:10 PM
11 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_Irate Mormon_*
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Posted 31 August 2013 - 10:42 PM
Well...the only way to know is to see how much the babies eat. They will have to be past the infusoria stage if they're gonna eat Artemia. I would start with 1/8 teaspoon of cysts, You will quickly figure out how much you need.
#3
Guest_Joshaeus_*
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Posted 01 September 2013 - 06:34 AM
Thank you for the rapid response. By the way, where do you find a measuring spoon that small? I've never seen one smaller than 1/4 tsp...
#4
Guest_Irate Mormon_*
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Posted 01 September 2013 - 10:40 AM
You can guesstimate 
#5
Guest_Skipjack_*
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Posted 01 September 2013 - 05:49 PM
Like a pinch of salt.
#6
Guest_centrarchid_*
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Posted 03 September 2013 - 04:36 PM
Key answer not evident. When time for labor not limiting, then setup up so a batch is hatched every 6 hours. Twelve hour intervals are ok but 18 and 24 hour interval hatches worked well only for larger fry. When young fish are first feeding, soft newly hatched brine shrimp are the way to go.
#7
Guest_gzeiger_*
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Posted 03 September 2013 - 08:12 PM
Is the key that they are soft, or that small fry need the extra nutrition of the partially intact yolk sac?
#8
littlen
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Posted 04 September 2013 - 08:36 AM
Both. Newly hatched artemia grow quickly and lose their nutritional value quickly. As it was mentioned above, the whole reason you are feeding the shrimp is (in addition to how easy it is) you want a small and nutritional food source for your tiny, Elassoma fry.
Nick L.
#9
Guest_gerald_*
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Posted 04 September 2013 - 10:02 AM
I refrigerate them soon after hatching, so I can start a new jar every 3 days rather than every day. A shallow flat-bottom container works best (with no channel around the edge) so they dont pile on top of each other and die. This preserves their small size (they dont molt) and (I assume) their nutritional quality too.
#10
Guest_centrarchid_*
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Posted 04 September 2013 - 10:22 AM
The refrigeration works as well. I like frequent batches because fish also fed frequently. Another "shelf-life" issue deals with longevity once they are in freshwater of culture tank. Most are close to dead after about two hours so my feeding regimen is set so all are consumed by that time. Fresh, vigorous brines hrimp are added at 2-hour intervals so fish ideally can eat for about 1.5 hours of each of those intervals. Allowing salinity of fish culture water to drift up to above 2 ppt greatly improves lifespan of BS.
#11
Guest_Joshaeus_*
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Posted 11 September 2013 - 04:12 PM
I admit this is a slightly late response, but how many grams of brineshrimp would be required to rear a batch of pygmy killifish fry to the point that they will start taking finely crushed flake? Further, at what age will the pygmy killifish fry start taking the brine shrimp instead of/in addition to infusoria?
#12
littlen
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Posted 15 November 2013 - 07:31 AM
Joshaeus,....there isn't a set amount of eggs that you would only need to hatch 'once', and have enough to feed your killifish fry for the first few days/week they are only able to feed on the newly hatched nauplii. Please note that I have no experience with Pygmy killifish, but the basic principles and reasons for having brine shrimp cultures is the same. I don't imagine pygmy killifish have a large number of offspring so you'd probably only need a few hundredths of a gram for each culture you start.
In a nutshell, you will need to have a few or even several separate cultures of BS going at any given time. For instance, if the fry are so small that they can only eat the smallest, newly hatched nauplii, then a culture more than 18-24 hours old will have nauplii that have molted a few times and become too large for your fry to eat. Hence, you'll need to start new cultures every day at a minimum.
I hope to start writing a new, detailed, topic on decapsulating brine shrimp eggs later today and hope that you'll take a look. While you may not need to decapsulate shrimp eggs for the small quantity you need, I will try to include some other information on the benefits of the decapsulation process.
In a nutshell, you will need to have a few or even several separate cultures of BS going at any given time. For instance, if the fry are so small that they can only eat the smallest, newly hatched nauplii, then a culture more than 18-24 hours old will have nauplii that have molted a few times and become too large for your fry to eat. Hence, you'll need to start new cultures every day at a minimum.
I hope to start writing a new, detailed, topic on decapsulating brine shrimp eggs later today and hope that you'll take a look. While you may not need to decapsulate shrimp eggs for the small quantity you need, I will try to include some other information on the benefits of the decapsulation process.
Nick L.
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