Live food: fairy shrimp

Does anyone have experience breeding fairy shrimp as feeders?

I have a 5-gallon tank set up for raising blackworms, but I'm not making much use of the water column right now so I was hoping to add something relatively low-maintenance that swims. I'm told scuds will eat the worms. My fish love ghost shrimp, but they are hard to breed and there's a lot of water movement in the tank that wouldn't be good for the fry. Fairy shrimp seemed like the next logical choice.

My main concern with them is the HOB filter. What I've done to prevent them being sucked into the intake is I've added a drinking glass below/around the suction tube and adjusted water level so that it spills over the rim to a slightly lower level inside the glass, making the world's smallest sump at probably 10 oz. It's still possible for hatchling shrimp to go over the spillway, but as far as I know they don't typically swim right at the top of the water.

What I want to know is

1) The filter makes a fair current in the tank, more or less in a circular direction. I think it's rated for 40 gal/hr on a 5 gallon tank. Is this a problem?

2) Are fairy shrimp easy to breed? I'd like them to be a sustainable colony, even though I probably have enough eggs to last several years. Will they spawn in pH 8.0?

3) Do I need to do something special to feed the young (floating plants already provided) or will they be able to forage? Food options must be compatible with water quality for the worms, which are the main project.

Does anyone have experience breeding fairy shrimp as feeders?

I have a 5-gallon tank set up for raising blackworms, but I'm not making much use of the water column right now so I was hoping to add something relatively low-maintenance that swims. I'm told scuds will eat the worms. My fish love ghost shrimp, but they are hard to breed and there's a lot of water movement in the tank that wouldn't be good for the fry. Fairy shrimp seemed like the next logical choice.

My main concern with them is the HOB filter. What I've done to prevent them being sucked into the intake is I've added a drinking glass below/around the suction tube and adjusted water level so that it spills over the rim to a slightly lower level inside the glass, making the world's smallest sump at probably 10 oz. It's still possible for hatchling shrimp to go over the spillway, but as far as I know they don't typically swim right at the top of the water.

What I want to know is

I raise them , I 'll try to help.

1) The filter makes a fair current in the tank, more or less in a circular direction. I think it's rated for 40 gal/hr on a 5 gallon tank. Is this a problem?

Yes, any filtration at all will be a problem fairy shrimp are filter feeders and weak swimmers any filter will starve them or at the very least suck them up.

2) Are fairy shrimp easy to breed? I'd like them to be a sustainable colony, even though I probably have enough eggs to last several years. Will they spawn in pH 8.0?

3)

As far as I know fairy shrimp cannot form a sustainable colony, they lay eggs that have to be dried out and hatched in very soft water. I raised fairy shrimp by adding eggs to a container of soft water and letting them hatch out, I feed them yeast, green water and stuff like that. I started out with a dozen or so shrimp and kept drying out all the eggs and rehatching them until i have tens of thousands at least, at this point I can harvest them and when the culture crashes i dry out the debris on the bottom and start over.

Do I need to do something special to feed the young (floating plants already provided) or will they be able to forage? Food options must be compatible with water quality for the worms, which are the main project.

The young like the adults are filter feeders and need things like yeast and green water to live. When you think fairy shrimp think brine shrimp, fairy shrimp are bascially freshwater brine shrimp.

I raise them , I 'll try to help.


As far as I know fairy shrimp cannot form a sustainable colony, they lay eggs that have to be dried out and hatched in very soft water. I raised fairy shrimp by adding eggs to a container of soft water and letting them hatch out, I feed them yeast, green water and stuff like that. I started out with a dozen or so shrimp and kept drying out all the eggs and rehatching them until i have tens of thousands at least, at this point I can harvest them and when the culture crashes i dry out the debris on the bottom and start over.



The young like the adults are filter feeders and need things like yeast and green water to live. When you think fairy shrimp think brine shrimp, fairy shrimp are bascially freshwater brine shrimp.

I'm new to this forum. I hope that you see this and reply...

My questions are for you Moontanman, 1. what kind of container do you raise your Fairy Shrimp in?

2. What do you use for your substrate in the container?

3. What kind of light do you use?

4. Do you use a heater in the container?

5. Do you feed the Fairy Shrimp to your fish?


Wow that's a lot of questions. But I am SO interested in raising the Fairy Shrimp and feeding them to my aquarium fish.

Thanks for your help.

I'm new to this forum. I hope that you see this and reply...

My questions are for you Moontanman, 1. what kind of container do you raise your Fairy Shrimp in?

2. What do you use for your substrate in the container?

3. What kind of light do you use?

4. Do you use a heater in the container?

5. Do you feed the Fairy Shrimp to your fish?


Wow that's a lot of questions. But I am SO interested in raising the Fairy Shrimp and feeding them to my aquarium fish.

Thanks for your help.

No problem, glad to help.

#1 anything that will hold water and is not toxic, old aquariums, plastic drums, fiberglass vats.

#2 None

#3 sunlight

#4 no, they are not tropical

#5 Yes, fish love them but Daphnia magna are easier to culture and make good food too. Daphnia do breed in a sustainable way, fairy shrimp must be cultured all at once and do not make a continuous culture. If fairy shrimp could grow in a continuous culture they would be great food for fishes.

Edited by usernamesRdumb, 20 February 2009 - 11:53 AM.

#5 Yes, fish love them but Daphnia magna are easier to culture and make good food too. Daphnia do breed in a sustainable way, fairy shrimp must be cultured all at once and do not make a continuous culture. If fairy shrimp could grow in a continuous culture they would be great food for fishes.

OK But as far as the fairy shrimp, how long do the eggs have to be dry for before you can start them growing?

"I feed them yeast, green water and stuff like that. "

Do they require other food to get big and breed?

Is there anyone who has dried eggs they'd like to give away?


Thanks for all the help.

Why can't they form a continuous culture? I thought they would under the right conditions lay eggs that hatched without drying? Maybe they should have a heater after all?

Why can't they form a continuous culture? I thought they would under the right conditions lay eggs that hatched without drying? Maybe they should have a heater after all?

I've been thinking and studying on doing this. I, however, have absolutely no experience. But I was thinking that I could easily have two containers, one with live shrimp growing and breeding and one drying. This way I will always have a continuous culture.

Does that seem reasonable?

That is why I was wondering how long the eggs had to be dried.

As far as I know fairy shrimp cannot form a sustainable colony, they lay eggs that have to be dried out and hatched

it really depends on the species you have, some can form semi-sustainable colonies because they can lay "summer" eggs which hatch right off, which in nature would boost the population quickly, and then lay the "winter" eggs which you described

Old thread, I know, but probably better than starting a new one. I just wanted to add that I have an incidental culture of fairy shrimp in my tubifex/snail culture that seems to be growing well. It's a seven gallon acrylic hex with a UGF tube floating vertically stuffed with nylon mesh as a filter. I almost never change the water, in effort to make sure the bacteria remain numerous. Eggshell and mussell shells keep the pH up. I put a tiny amount of fish food in there daily, along with bits of leafy foods and tuna chunks. There are more turbo snails than anything else, a few ramshorn snails (the tiny kind) and a solid carpet of tubifex or detritus worms living in the snail waste. Swimming in this soup is a now rapidly exploding fairy shrimp population. I see them mating, and the weird nymph-like phases are kicking around looking more like daphnia than anything else. No daphnia, though. They died off in the first few weeks. This culture is about five months old. Anyway, I'd just confirm the thin-shelled (summer eggs) idea. My house is warm, which may or may not have anything to do with it, but I'm getting an army of these guys as we speak, which is good news for my surprise angelfish fry... So now comes the question...can I move this process to the fry tank? It would be great to have the fry living in the shrimp cloud!

Edited by Knifegill, 20 August 2009 - 10:34 PM.

Old thread, I know, but probably better than starting a new one. I just wanted to add that I have an incidental culture of fairy shrimp in my tubifex/snail culture that seems to be growing well. It's a seven gallon acrylic hex with a UGF tube floating vertically stuffed with nylon mesh as a filter. I almost never change the water, in effort to make sure the bacteria remain numerous. Eggshell and mussell shells keep the pH up. I put a tiny amount of fish food in there daily, along with bits of leafy foods and tuna chunks. There are more turbo snails than anything else, a few ramshorn snails (the tiny kind) and a solid carpet of tubifex or detritus worms living in the snail waste. Swimming in this soup is a now rapidly exploding fairy shrimp population. I see them mating, and the weird nymph-like phases are kicking around looking more like daphnia than anything else. No daphnia, though. They died off in the first few weeks. This culture is about five months old. Anyway, I'd just confirm the thin-shelled (summer eggs) idea. My house is warm, which may or may not have anything to do with it, but I'm getting an army of these guys as we speak, which is good news for my surprise angelfish fry... So now comes the question...can I move this process to the fry tank? It would be great to have the fry living in the shrimp cloud!

Very Interesting!
Keep us informed of how that goes!

I have raised a few generations of fairy shrimp and find it less work simply because I don't have to worry about the salt needed for brine shrimp. They are a lot of fun to watch as well. I'm fascinated by your setup. Let us know if your fairy shrimp continue to reproduce naturally. The longest that I got a continuous colony to exist was 3 months.

My further research indicates that one of the triggers for the shrimp to switch from summer to winter eggs is rising salinity, which in the wild would indicate a falling water level and imminent dryout of the pool. If you never change water from your culture vat I would expect ultimately that they would stop producing summer eggs as nitrate builds up in the water.

I have mine in a 20 gallon Rubbermaid with a thin substrate of crushed oystershell to provide pH buffer and calcium. This culture is only about two weeks old. I see some adults swimming about with eggs, and I have some very small shrimp, but I can't tell if they are late hatches from the eggs I originally added or if they are new. I need to figure out a feeding scheme that can sustain a higher density than me pouring in yeast and green water daily. The tank has a single airstone, which doesn't seem to bother them and helps keep the yeast suspended, and no filter.

Where did y'all get your starter eggs?

Ebay.

I can now definitely say that these shrimp do form a self-sustaining culture. I still suspect that I'll need to figure out a way to change water eventually, but I have very small shrimp now that could not be hatched from the original eggs I added.

I also discovered two fairy shrimp in an outdoor container which was not intentionally seeded. I brought them in as fish food since I wasn't sure if they were a native species or if I had inadvertently spread some of my Arizona strain outside. There was some incidental contact with my shrimp vat because this was the tub I was scooping green water from as a food source, and possibly also through a net I was using to remove mosquitos. They did have red tails, but I didn't know if that was a distinctive trait of these "redtail fairy shrimp" I bought.

My culture seems to have picked up a fungus. I've seen a couple shrimp swimming around with antennae and in two cases swimmerettes covered in puffy white. I've removed affected individuals but don't know yet if it will spread. First appearance coincided with feeding boiled egg yolk, but no other reason to think it's related.

Redtail sounds like it may be Streptocephalus seali which is native in the Carolinas. Ive seen them in the Sandhills Gamelands in NC. Adult males are more greenish, females tan, both with red tail. I could never raise them at high enough density to be practical as food, and besides they're just too darn cute.
The fungus-like stuff may actually be Vorticella, a protozoan. It can grow on Daphnia too.

I also discovered two fairy shrimp in an outdoor container which was not intentionally seeded. I brought them in as fish food since I wasn't sure if they were a native species or if I had inadvertently spread some of my Arizona strain outside. There was some incidental contact with my shrimp vat because this was the tub I was scooping green water from as a food source, and possibly also through a net I was using to remove mosquitos. They did have red tails, but I didn't know if that was a distinctive trait of these "redtail fairy shrimp" I bought.

My culture seems to have picked up a fungus. I've seen a couple shrimp swimming around with antennae and in two cases swimmerettes covered in puffy white. I've removed affected individuals but don't know yet if it will spread. First appearance coincided with feeding boiled egg yolk, but no other reason to think it's related.

Density does seem to be the problem with the project. I have a couple dozen individuals in my 20 gallon tub, but certainly not enough to make it any more than a curiosity at the moment. What I need is a way to continuously add food throughout the day. Bacteria culture would seem to be the way to go, except for the smell since the whole operation has to remain indoors.

what is your specific food recipe for your fairy shrimp

God, I love you guys! I would have never thought to search ebay for fairyshrimp eggs! lol so much fun

Sorry I missed that earlier reply. Mostly my shrimp get brewer's yeast each day, 4-5 pinches dissolved in water. WHen I'm feeling more ambitious I crush up the pellets or flakes I feed to the fish, and sometimes Spirulina wafers or just plain green water from outside buckets. That's gone away with the summer though.

The trick is that they're filter feeders, so really anything you can make into particles small enough to remain suspended long enough to be eaten. The other strategy is to throw a lot of rotting crap in there and add a bright light and just let them eat algae and bacteria.