lpslover
Community Member
Need thoughts regarding live Artemia (brine shimp) grow out.
Some back ground:
I came across an article in CORAL a few months back on training mandarins to take frozen foods by issolating them in a mesh breeder to concentrate the food items, starting with live adult brine shimp which is usually well accepted, then weaning onto frozen brine and then onto frozen mysis. Needless to say it looks very promising, I need a new experiment (I get bored easily.) and I'm feeling up to the challenge.
The issues:
I've cultured photoplankton and hatched brine shimp for years, that's nothing new. But I've never tried to keep the nauplii alive for more than a couple days. Most of my research indicates that most people use a sponge filter in the grow out tank. I also came across race ways and power filter set ups. I'm trying to keep this simple because I'm not made of money, I have limited space for culture tanks and my DIY handy woman skills are fairly pathetic. So that would seem to be a sure vote for the sponge filter. My concern is this: Artemia are filter feeders. Most of my research indicates that the best option is to keep the water heavily saturated with food around the clock for best grow out. But the sponge filter will pull food out of the water column and as a result clog the filter rapidly.
The question:
So do I use the sponge filter, increase the food added and clean the sponge frequently? Or would my scheme to simply use an airstone but to add biofiltration in the form of siporax type beads that have been in my main tank's filter for a month or so work? In either case I would be doing 20% water changes weekly and siphoning detritus off the bottom.
Anyone have any ideas? Experiences? Thoughts?
Some back ground:
I came across an article in CORAL a few months back on training mandarins to take frozen foods by issolating them in a mesh breeder to concentrate the food items, starting with live adult brine shimp which is usually well accepted, then weaning onto frozen brine and then onto frozen mysis. Needless to say it looks very promising, I need a new experiment (I get bored easily.) and I'm feeling up to the challenge.
The issues:
I've cultured photoplankton and hatched brine shimp for years, that's nothing new. But I've never tried to keep the nauplii alive for more than a couple days. Most of my research indicates that most people use a sponge filter in the grow out tank. I also came across race ways and power filter set ups. I'm trying to keep this simple because I'm not made of money, I have limited space for culture tanks and my DIY handy woman skills are fairly pathetic. So that would seem to be a sure vote for the sponge filter. My concern is this: Artemia are filter feeders. Most of my research indicates that the best option is to keep the water heavily saturated with food around the clock for best grow out. But the sponge filter will pull food out of the water column and as a result clog the filter rapidly.
The question:
So do I use the sponge filter, increase the food added and clean the sponge frequently? Or would my scheme to simply use an airstone but to add biofiltration in the form of siporax type beads that have been in my main tank's filter for a month or so work? In either case I would be doing 20% water changes weekly and siphoning detritus off the bottom.
Anyone have any ideas? Experiences? Thoughts?
