YnotFish wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2024 9:08 am
Hi all
Since this looks to be becoming a general discussion, what would be the easiest live food to breed for the fish (Mrs. Ynotfish insists on it also being the least messy!)?
I see these artemia kits in the Internet, would that be a candidate, and what should I look for in a good kit?
Thanks!
This all depends what egg laying species you what to breed. While you can use Artemia, fry like many Barb, Danio, Rasbora or Tetras species will find these newly hatched shrimp far to large for them to consume. Larger fry will eat them but too many Brine shrimp can cause their demise. The other issue is the ability to produce enough newly hatched Artemia. Few days old Artemia may have grown to large for the fry to eat, so a constant fresh supply is needed. Last time I was breeding Angelfish, I had six upturned 2 litre Coke bottles mounted on the wall with Artemia in various stages from eggs, newly hatched, to a few days old and this was for two batches of fry, fed two to three times a day. Also to feed the fry you need a Artemia net to remove them from the salt water as with most aquarium nets, the young Brine shrimp will pass straight through the mesh. Most Artemia kits are only really useful for a small amounts for medium sized fry, in other words, livebearer size fry.
With many fish species, the fry are very tiny when first hatched and after the yolk sac is finished they need very small, micro sized live foods like infusoria to survive. Infusoria is easy enough to culture but I should imagine the boss won't like that and the next step up for the fry is micro worm cultures but these get smelly after a few days. Most aquatic prepared foods are either to large or if care is not taken can contaminate the water column in short order.
So what are you thinking of trying to breed?
