Brine Shrimp : The Aquarium Hobby And Brine Shrimp

In this hub we will be looking at brine shrimp purely from the view of a aquarium hobbyist (Heavy marine bias) so if you're looking for general information on Artemia or Sea Monkeys, click on the highlighted words.

Brine shrimp sees very widespread use in the aquarium hobby mainly because they are cheap, their cysts are easy to store and they hatch readily under proper conditions. Most fish food manufacturers have at least one line up of brine shrimp products whether in cyst form, frozen or dried.

Let us touch on a little background information on brine shrimp very quickly before we move onto their main uses in the aquarium hobby.

Brine shrimp are primitive crustaceans that have been here since the time of Dinosaurs. They require saline water and will be found in inland salt lakes in abundance.

Since few creatures are able to live in such saline conditions, saline bodies of water on the mainland offer the perfect breeding ground for brine shrimp. Mainly because there is an abundance of food (microscopic algae) and there are no predators. There are not found in the ocean.

As mentioned earlier, they are mainly used as fish food in the aquarium industry. Frozen brine shrimp is the most popular offering from fish food manufacturers.

And frankly, that is worrying. Because nutritionally, frozen brine shrimp are very poor. They can be counted on to provide one element in abundance, roughage. Which is fiber. Sure, manufacturers add all sorts of vitamins to them before packaging, but why bother when there are far more superior products on the market that are just as cheap. Mysis shrimp for example.

The only frozen brine shrimp i would ever consider feeding my livestock are the pre-enriched varieties. Which are basically adult brine shrimp that were fed something nutritious like spirulina before they were frozen, thereby locking in some extra nutrition within their stomachs. These types of frozen foods remind me of the Trojan Horse. Its not the wooden horse that is important, its whats inside that is.

Does that mean all forms of brine shrimp are bad? No it doesn't, but stay away from the generic frozen ones and get yourself some mysis shrimp or krill instead.

As a live food however, artemia has some great uses, particularly when they have just been hatched. Newly hatched brine shrimp feed off a yolk sac that will be used up in about 12 hours. Right after hatching, their fatty acid content and nutritional profile is pretty good but starts to decline rapidly within hours so it is important to feed them as soon as possible.

They are widely used by fish and shrimp breeders as a larval food. Some larvae can be feed baby brine shrimp straight away such as sexy shrimp (Thor Amboinensis) and peppermint shrimp (Lysmata Wurdemanni). Others, like the percula clownfish (Amphiprion Percula) can only begin feeding on them once they have grown a bit larger.

They are also used as a form as zooplankton for corals or planktivores. Some LPS and SPS corals readily consume them, as do planktivores like Anthias fish.

Adult live brine shrimp must be properly enriched before feeding, or they offer very little. Some good foods to feed include spirulina and live phytoplankton of a few specific strains, namely T-ISO and Nanno.

Adults can be used to elicit a feeding response from very finicky eaters. I've personally used spiruina enriched adults on the flaming prawn goby (Discordipinna Griessingeri) and the purple masked angelfish (Centropyge Venustus) with great success. Unfortunately i could not wean the goby off of it.

They are particularly useful when training Mandarin Dragonets (Synchiropus Splendidus) to accept prepared foods. These dragonets consume mainly copepods in the wild and rarely accept frozen foods as a result. They are fed live adult brine shrimp for a few days before adding in a small portion of frozen artemia into the mix. As soon as they start accepting frozen brine shrimp, mysis shrimp is introduced with the hope of them accepting it.