Chilled live Atemia nauplii

[apistomaster]

I have been using chilled, frehly hatched brine shrimp nauplii to my catfish fry for about one year and it has proven to be so useful and easy I thought I would post this.
After hatching the cysts normally, I separate the nauplii and then rinse them with cleaned hatching water into a plastic shoe box or similar container to about 3/4 in deep. Then I place the shrimp in the refrigerator. They stay alive for many hours but even if they die, they remain usable for up to three days.

This has been especially useful for feeding catfish fry of all kinds because they will fall to the bottom unless there are strong currents in the fry tank. The chilled brine shrimp are much easier for the fry of catfish to find than very active brine shrimp. It becomes as easy for them to eat as microworms only brine shrimp nauplii are more nutritious. I have actually adopted this method to feed all my fry. My Discus fry accept the chilled shrimp as well as they do fresh ones. This allows me to only hatch brine shrimp every other day.
I haven't tried this method with some fish like Betta fry only days old and there may be some species of fish fry that require some moving foods but the majority of fish will eventually eat chilled brine shrimp.
I believe it is important to keep the shrimp in the brine solution to help preserve them rather than storing them in fresh water but if the hatch will be used on the same day as its harvested, then I don't think it matters.

[nooneknows]

Hi Larry-

This is great news from a time saving standpoint. Have you tried it with SA Dwarf Cichlids? Or are you using microworms?

Thx!