brine shrimp

[adnedarn]

any one ever try feeding u. gibba brine shrimp?   i know brine shrimp usaly strive in salt waters...  although in breading angel fish i know that you can hatch and partally grow brine shrimp in salt water and seperate it into clear water and they will live...  i don't know how long since they got eatten...   :\ but never tried distilled water. i also know from reading that they eat alge so maybe this will help keep that down as well.    well, i hatched some the other day and tonight seperated them into distilled water to see how well they live.  so far so good.   one more question.  magore, if i kill my u. gibba with this test, could i get some more??  

 

 

 

 

lates,
andrew

 

[theironmonkey]

good luck with that test!! i grow brine shrimp, but for a different reason. i plan on feeding them to my pufferfish!! i just got a flounder too!! anyhoo, im sure your utric would easily take young brine shrimp.......didnt know they could live for long periods of time in fresh water tho. well, take care

 

[magore]

Andrew,
Just message me and I will send you more.

 

[cephalotus88]

brine shrimp could live about a day in freshwater. i would use a toothpick and try to lift up a small briney and place it near a trap.

theironmonkey: a pufferfish! cool dude! is it a "number 8" kind?

 

[swords]

I discovered the weirdest algae I'd ever seen in my planted killifish tank a few years ago. No matter what I did I couldn't erradicate it and it grew these impressively long winding strands with all these weird little balls on it... I always thought they were non-fertile killifish eggs which had been laid upon the algae strands. Turns out it was no algae it was Utricularia gibba (or some simillar species)! I always fed my killies frozen daphnia (waterfleas) which are freshwater dwelling and perfect size for U. gibba. Even with rigorous pruning and removing all visible strands it still came back over and over til I eventaully tore down the tank and restarted.
Then later I find out  that I had a 40 gallon tank full of U gibba and now have none now that I know know what it is...  

I've tried three times to put an image of the fish with the utricularia but for some reason it won't let me... so click http://the-natural-aquarium.com/utic1.html if you wanna see em.

 

[adnedarn]

in freshwater the longest i had seen any survive was 4 days. (then they either died or got eaten). in distilled water... approx 4 hours. so that will not work. were is it i can get some daphnia? magore suggested a web site ( www.carolina.com ) but i couldn't find them there.
lates,
andrew

 

[magore]

It is hard to link to a section on their (www.carolina.com) so from the catalog choose Life science ; then Living Organisms; then Animals; Then Crustaceans; You will then finally find a listing for daphina.

 

[swords]

I mainly use frozen daphnia from Hikari fish foods about $2.99 for 30x 1" x 1" squares of daphnia far too much to use at once for a few plants (or even tiny killifish) but you can simply cut a corner off witha paring knife and melt in a teaspoon of R/O water. The plants are able to catch the daphnia as you turkey baste/squirt it into the water. As I say, mine was in a true aquatic terraium so I had a filter stirrng the water so the defrosted daphnia remained suspended for a longer period of time than just in a still jar of water. but if you squirt it in with a baster you'll cause some water movement and the feelers should trigger as mine always had little black dots inside the traps).
You can get live daphnia from just about any pond or creek in the woods (if you have a woods nearby). Do a web search on collecting daphnia for sites on doing it, all you need is a butterfly net (or even finer netting if you can get it), and a pond and a glass jar of that ponds water. You can probably keep a daphnia culture going if you allow a 5 gallon pail to fill with rainwater and become host to algaes-especially green water algae (where the water looks like pea soup) you can achieve this within a couple weeks by putting a tea spoon of flake fish food (or rotting oak leaves-something to give a high phosphate concentration in the water) into the bucket of rainwater and setting it in a sunny location. You'll soon have green water (daphnia food) and then just dump a jar of daphnia laden pond water in and you'll have a steady supply (til the water freezes).

It's easier and reliable to just buy the frozen though. I've gotten lazy I guess!