Food cultivation

[daplatapus]

Is anyone out there growing their own rotifers, brine shrimp etc to feed their tank? I'm curious about its pro's and cons and whether it's worth it.

[Enigma]

I would love to know this too. I'd also like to learn a little about the setups people are using.

[rayjay]

Yes!
While I cultivate both rotifers and brine shrimp, only the rotifers go into my tank and only after I enrich them with Dan's Feed.
I found better results with enriched rotifers over using nannochloropsis.

[daplatapus]

Are you feeding your main DT rotifers? For some reason (very uneducated guess) I thought that rotifers were very small and were used mainly to feed very young fish. What do you do with your brine shrimp?
Let us in on everything you know :)

I have read that only newly hatched brine are of any nutritional value other than that I know nothing :)

[monocus]

i raise nanochloropus,tetraselmius,isocrysis(which just crashed-more on it's way)rotifers,brine shrimp;started copipods,and it seems like a lot of mussels(green shell)in my main tank.never heard of dans feed,so i enrich the rotifers with the three phytos,which i feed all my tanks.i tried roto rich,but i found the phyto better.i posted a link from the austrailian institute that stated coral healed faster and better using enriched rotifers.and yes coral feeds on rotifers as well.and everything feeds on newly hatched brine shrimp-but you should gut load them.

[daplatapus]

Got any links on how to's, suppliers for cultures, equipment etc you'd like to share? Or even a quick blurb of your process and maybe some pics. :) I've been seeing some strange setups on google and want to understand the process a bit better and hear some first hand experiences. Do you feel it better and/or cheaper? What makes you do it? Should more people do it?

[FitoPharmer]

FAF PLANKTON CULTURE MANUAL 6TH EDITION (http://florida-aqua-farms.com/secure/agora.cgi?cart_id=8752877.26370*cr6az0&product=BOOKS_MANUALS)

Great read, and they carry supplies.

INVE Aquaculture (http://www.inve.com/INVE-Aquaculture/Products/page.aspx/1022?region=4)

They have some products for aquaculture that seem worth a try.

[rayjay]

OK, first off, I buy brine cysts, mesh bags, (250 and 150 mesh), spirulina powder from Brine Shrimp Direct. I buy rotifer cysts and f/2 fertilizer from Florida Aqua Farms.
Next, there is a lot of "miss-information" out there regarding brine shrimp nutrition and it's my belief that it stems from the fact people don't really understand % of something as reported on packaging and end up comparing apples to oranges.
They look at frozen brine packaging that gives a low percentage of protein, and look at other foods like pellet or flake or whatever where they see high percentage of protein. The problem is that almost all %s for those "higher" level foods are reported in DW (dry weight percent) whereas the brine shrimp are reported in WW (wet weight percentage) which includes all moisture in the shrimp and all packaging fluids as well.
Now, if you take for example a one gram portion of flake food and soak it in water, you now would have a very much heavier weight of the flake, but the nutrient amounts are still the same, but based on the new "wet weight" of the flake, the percentages are now going to be very small.
Conversely, if you dry all the moisture out of the brine shrimp, you will still have the same nutrient levels, but as the weight now is minuscule compared to before so now the dry weight percentages will be high.
A Fact: Brine shrimp when first hatched have an excellent fatty acid profile and a decent protein level. However, the fatty acids start getting consumed as soon as they are hatched out, gradually lowering the fatty acid profile over a couple of days. You can't even enrich them until they reach the 2nd Instar stage when their digestive system becomes complete. (assume 24 hours after hatchout)
As the brine grow, their protein levels increase, but unless you feed something like Algamac 3050, or Selco/Selcon emulsions, (Algamac is best) their fatty acid profile is not sufficient for marine fish/corals etc.
Contrary to what many think, protein levels of artemia grown from Great Salt Lake cysts are higher than protein levels of most other foods we feed our tanks. Protein 49 to 62% DW for juveniles and adults.
By enrichment of the brine shrimp, these levels can be increased, or other levels like fatty acids and be increased, or, you can enrich with medications or vitamins, as long as they can be emulsified for uptake by the brine.
Source: Manual on the Production and Use of Live Foods for Aquaculture (http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/W3732E/W3732E00.HTM) Scroll down to section 4.4.1
If you really have an interest in growing them and not just hatching them, then here is the link to my brine shrimp page.
GROWING BRINE SHRIMP (http://www.angelfire.com/ab/rayjay/brineshrimp.html)
I use the brine shrimp for my seahorse tanks.
As for adding rotifers to the tank, they need enrichment first, but most small life forms in the tank will consume them from pod life to polyps of corals but are too small for most fish to have any interest at all in them.
Enrichment of rotifers only takes 3 or 4 hours, unlike bbs which take 12 to 24 hours.
(The bbs should be enriched for two 12 hour stages with new salt water and new enrichment for each stage, about 24 hours after hatch out)
I also use live rotifers for the first weeks of pelagic seahorse fry like H. reidi, but most benthic seahorse fry will take enriched bbs from birth. Some clownfish breeders get rotifers from me for their fry.

[rayjay]

I forgot to explain about Dan's Feed.
Dan Underwood of seahorsesource.com, sells blends of various enrichments as well as separate items.
The "Dans Feed" comes with or without Beta Glucan and is a mix of many different things to maximize benefits for marine life.
http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Foods-Enrichments (http://www.seahorsesource.com/cgi-bin/shop/search.cgi?&category=Foods-Enrichments)

[monocus]

the good thing about rotifers is they double in population every 16 hours as long as they are fed.you can seed your sump as long as you feed it and it will spill out to your dt feeding your coral all the time.i use aquamedic reactors to grow my rotifers and phyto-3 rotifer and 4 phyto-all lit with leds.green phyto lit with red leds and brown phyto with blue leds.the rotifers are lit with white leds.i'm planning on buying 2 more aqua medics so i have 2 of each phyto in case of crashes.i should have my computer fixed by tomorrow and i will upload a photo(damn virus )as for cost-$180 for air pump,$110 for reactor each,lights-$50 each reactor,plus supplies(aprox $100 delivered from florida aqua farms)-the benifits;live feed that you have constantly instead of spending $20 a bottle for mixed dead phyto($8 a bottle for rotifers-i supply j&l).brine shrimp i buy by the pound from your fish stuff(2 lb for $128 delivered-way better than $40 for a 2.25 ounce bottle from the lfs)(works out to $9 for the same amount)