Culturing brine shrimp in a reef tank?

[jason604]

So I'm trying to hatch and keep brine shrimps alive in my tank because I recently bought a green mandarin. I just hatch them in a water bottle with an air pump floating in my sump. So my question is can I just siphon the baby brine into my chaeto in the sump and some into my DT and that would be good enough so my mandarin can graze on them slowly throughout the week till I repeat the process or will they not survive like that? I heard about gutting them. I just put some reef roid into their hatching bottle, is that good enough?

[rayjay]

With reef tank flow rates, the brine shrimp nauplii cannot make their way around the tank and will merely get sucked up by any mechanical filtration so it would be case of feeding some to the tank with shutting off return pump and power heads until feeding has been done.
Any enrichment you use has to be appropriately sized so Reef Roids would be too large for nauplii and they don't have a proper nutrient profile to be an enrichment. The mandarin would probably eat the Reef Roids even though they are meant to feed corals I believe.
Also, you need to consider sterilizing the cysts before hatching, or use decapped cysts to lessen the chances of adding nasty bacteria to your tank as brine shrimp cysts are known to be a problem this way.
When brine shrimp hatch out, they have no active digestive system and it will take about a day for them to get to the second instar stage where they can feed.
For proper enrichment it would take 2 twelve hour stages with new water and enrichment for each stage. First stage basically gut loads them, and second stage the enrichment becomes assimilated into their flesh making nutrition much better.

[jason604]

With reef tank flow rates, the brine shrimp nauplii cannot make their way around the tank and will merely get sucked up by any mechanical filtration so it would be case of feeding some to the tank with shutting off return pump and power heads until feeding has been done.
Any enrichment you use has to be appropriately sized so Reef Roids would be too large for nauplii and they don't have a proper nutrient profile to be an enrichment. The mandarin would probably eat the Reef Roids even though they are meant to feed corals I believe.
Also, you need to consider sterilizing the cysts before hatching, or use decapped cysts to lessen the chances of adding nasty bacteria to your tank as brine shrimp cysts are known to be a problem this way.
When brine shrimp hatch out, they have no active digestive system and it will take about a day for them to get to the second instar stage where they can feed.
For proper enrichment it would take 2 twelve hour stages with new water and enrichment for each stage. First stage basically gut loads them, and second stage the enrichment becomes assimilated into their flesh making nutrition much better.

What's a good method of sterilizing the eggs? Can I just run them under the tap first? For enriching should I just put in phyto then filter out the brine out after 12 hr and put them in a new bottle of salt water then what I do after that. I already squirted 2 turkey blasters of "dirty baby brine" to my chaeto already -.-

[rayjay]

You have to hydrate the cysts first.
I add the cysts to a litre of tap water and let sit for 30 minutes. This allows them to soak up enough water to make the next stage go better.
Then I add an open ended air line to keep the cysts in motion for an hour.
At the end of the hour, I add about 125ml of bleach and keep aeration going for about 4 minutes.
At the end of 4 minutes, rinse the cysts for about 3 minutes under the cold water tap to remove all traces of bleach.
This takes care of nasties that may be harbouring in the cysts.
Now take the cysts and add them to the salt water for hatching.
After hatching I siphon them off, rinse, and put in new salt water for a grow out period of a day. They CANNOT feed until they grow to the second Instar stage where they have a developed digestive tract.
Day two I siphon them out, rinse, put in new salt water and add enrichment. After 12 hours I repeat this last stage.
Rinse well again before adding nauplii to the tank.
The rinsing and water changes are to minimize any airborne bacteria from getting a toe hold on the cultures.
To enrich with phyto you need a lot of different phytos as one type doesn't have all that is needed.
I personally prefer to use powders that I blend in the blender with water for at least two minutes.
For mandarins I would think using spirulina powder, especially if you can get Algamac 3050 to add a bit to, would be great for them.
I get my spirulina powder from Brine Shrimp Direct at around $10US/pound.
The Algamac 3050 can be bought from seahorsesource.com.
You can find more information about brine shrimp at the bottom of my page, Raising Brine Shrimp to Adult (http://www.angelfire.com/ab/rayjay/brineshrimp.html) where I have some links for reading that include a DIY enrichment.

[monocus]

i have DE-capsilized eggs that i can give you to start out.then you can hatch them in salt water.for gut loading i grow various phytoplankton and rotifers.j&l sells decap eggs at around $40 for a 3.5 oz bottle,but i get mine from brine shrimp direct by the lb(2 lb of premium small breeder size was $160 delivered)

[rayjay]

What different phytos do you have? Rotifers are no good for enrichment as they are less nutritious than the newly hatched brine nauplii.
I have to enrich the rotifers before I can use them for seahorse fry, and even clownfish fry do better when properly enriched. They don't take as long as brine nauplii to enrich as they are voracious eaters.
It's a LOT cheaper to decapp your own cysts.
I buy the best cysts Brine Shrimp Direct sells and while it took me a few batches to get the timing down right, it's basically pretty simple and you can do a large batch to last a few weeks by storing them in saturated salt water in the fridge.
I did find however that when I changed brands of bleach, I sometimes had to adjust the time of bleaching as not all bleaches are the exact same strength.
When I stick to using the same brand I don't have the problem.

[monocus]

nanochloropus,tetraselmus,dunaiella,and soon isocrysis(as soon as i fix the blue leds for the lighting).i feed these all to my rotifers and brine shrimp

[rayjay]

That's a good mix of phyto to use.
I'm too lazy to do all the work for the amount I need.
I had at my maximum, 150 gallons of nanno under culture but when I found how easy it was to grow the rots and brine with spirulina powder, I cut down to a couple of gallons.
For me, the nano was extremely easy other than when it became contaminated with rots, but the others were a PITA when I tried to ramp up to large containers.
Now, I do a bit more in the way of water changes for rots and brine, but save a heck of a lot of time in not culturing phyto. (hydro bill lowered too)

[monocus]

i use aquamedic reactors(3 rotifer,1 nano,1 tetra,1 dunaliella,1 isocrysis,1 spare)-all running off one pump(helon hp 20).i made all my lights using 1 watt leds(various colors for different phyto)so the cost is fairly small to run them.i produce more phyto than i can actually use(i have 11 tanks running at the moment-240 gal-10 gal)and i supply rotifers to j&l weekly(missed last week due to work schedule)i may spend an hour or two a week looking after everything

[jason604]

im using kent marine'es phytoplex. Is this good enough or garbz?

[rayjay]

I use 5g water bottles to grow rotifers, and 26g rubbermaid garbage pails to raise the brine shrimp.
Those reactors would never supply me with enough product to feed my production of rots and brine so I used 5 and 6g pails and 26g rubbermaids to supply enough.
Now, I just have a couple of gallons of nanno that I use for seahorse fry containers when I have any on the go.
For the amount you are using, Jason, the phytoplex should do just fine.
For me, it would be EXTREMELY costly.

[monocus]

the problem with phytoplex is that the cells are dead.i like to culture my own as it is live

[rayjay]

Live or dead, as long as the nutrition is right and the rots and brine feed on it, it works for me.
It saves a lot of extra work to culture the live, especially when multiple types are needed.

[jason604]

Do mandarins eat roti?

[rayjay]

That I don't know. But mandarins eating brine is a crap-shoot also. Some will eat brine while others don't. Rots and brine are not a natural food for them.
In any case, the rots are so small it would take an awful lot of them to be of any significant nutrition input.
A lot of corals feed on rotifers.

[jason604]

What's a good and easy way of feeding my mandarin? Since I can't find any1 with pods in the area and JL sell them at rip off prices

[monocus]

there are many people with pods in their sumps.some filter floss in anyone's sump could get a starter culture of pods.rotifers can enrich brine shrimp for feeding as they are microscopic,but they are only as nutritious as their last meal.that's why i feed my rotifers various phyto.also check with anybody that has filter socks.you could get pods from there as well

[rayjay]

Rotifers are too large to feed to brine nauplii. Brine nauplii are looking for food in the up to 50 micron range whereas L strain rotifers run 200 to 350 micron range.
Even if you could find the S strain, they run at 150 and up.
Try the brine nauplii first to see if it will take them. You will almost certainly have to turn off the sump return pump, and anything else that will damage them or blow them around. You can put a light source at the bottom of the tank to see if they will gather there for the mandarin to find and feed on.
It's possible sometimes that a mandarin will only go for the brine in a particular size range so you may have to grow them out to a bit larger size.
Full sized ones haven't appeared to be of any interest to the mandarin I had, but juveniles were accepted.
For this trial stage, you don't have to bother with the enrichment because all you want to do is find out if it will be seen as food.
If so, then you can follow up with enriched nauplii.
You probably have mysid shrimp in your tank so putting a pile of small rubble on the tank bottom will help to provide higher mysid density.

[jason604]

Last night I noticed the first trail 2 turkey bladders of live baby brine that I squirted into my chaeto and DT were floating around in my DT dead.

[Madreefer]

What's a good and easy way of feeding my mandarin? Since I can't find any1 with pods in the area and JL sell them at rip off prices

Might have been a question to ask before you got the mandarin.

[rayjay]

first trail 2 turkey bladders of live baby brine that I squirted into my chaeto and DT were floating around in my DT dead.
I don't know what trail 2 turkey bladders are.
If you are expecting the brine to survive in a tank, forget it.
First off, they don't live where predation exists, and, any pumps/ powerheads will kill them off fairly quickly. Also, there is nothing in the tanks for them to feed on anyway and they quickly loose their nutrition other than protein.

[jason604]

I don't know what trail 2 turkey bladders are.
If you are expecting the brine to survive in a tank, forget it.
First off, they don't live where predation exists, and, any pumps/ powerheads will kill them off fairly quickly. Also, there is nothing in the tanks for them to feed on anyway and they quickly loose their nutrition other than protein.

lol damn iphone auto correct.. 2 turkey blasters* anyways i fed it some frozen mysis and i saw him pecking it at it a few times then spit a tiny bit out.. did it a few times. Is this a good sign? i tried feedin him the live brine shrimp babies but it doesnt seem to see it

[rayjay]

Yes, unless the mandarin is very small, it probably isn't interested in brine shrimp nauplii. You would have to grow them out to juvenile and try again.

[daniella3d]

feeding a mandarin with live white worms is much less of a trouble than having to hatch brine shrimp and the worms usually get to the liverock and bottom where the mandarin can eat them easily, as it is hard for a mandarin to eat free swimming things.

[jason604]

Might have been a question to ask before you got the mandarin.

feeding a mandarin with live white worms is much less of a trouble than having to hatch brine shrimp and the worms usually get to the liverock and bottom where the mandarin can eat them easily, as it is hard for a mandarin to eat free swimming things.

Interesting. Wonder where I can get these. My fish is about inch

[rayjay]

Did you have any specific type of white worm in mind?
All I've ever read about white worms is that they are really high in EPA, too high as far as some are concerned, and not high enough in DHA for the needs of salt water fish.
White worms are big with fresh water fish but they don't have the DHA needs that salt water fish do.