Fairy Shrimp

[KentFishFanUK]

I've just found out today about fairy shrimp - Streptocephalus siamensis. They seem similar to brine shrimp only freshwater, with highly nutritious nauplii just like BBS. Is there any reason noone seems to talk about them as an option for live food? Brine shrimp and BBS/their eggs are everywhere for use as live foods but I can only find one place to order fairy shrimp eggs from in the UK but I'm not sure why, it seems they would work just the same with the dry eggs lasting for years and years until they are wet etc only with the advantage of them surviving longer in freshwater tanks.

What am I missing? 

 

[Fish Folk]

Chasing this down. 
Here’s an article abstract. Looks promising.

[Fish Folk]

Here’s directions on culturing them.

[Fish Folk]

Appears that they can be acquired online here. 

[ARMYVET]

On 9/6/2021 at 10:28 AM, Fish Folk said:

Appears that they can be acquired online here. 

I was looking them up too..lol 

I found this...

http://www.arizonafairyshrimp.com/eggs_e.html

[Fish Folk]

This answered all the questions I had about Fairy Shrimp. Good fish food. A bit tricky to multiply without a developed breeding / egg-collecting plan. Harder to gather continuously, so not likely to replace Brine Shrimp. But there are possibilities here that should be considered.

[ARMYVET]

On 9/6/2021 at 11:39 AM, Fish Folk said:

This answered all the questions I had about Fairy Shrimp. Good fish food. A bit tricky to multiply without a developed breeding / egg-collecting plan. Harder to gather continuously, so not likely to replace Brine Shrimp. But there are possibilities here that should be considered.

Interesting indeed.  I agree that they will not be replacing brine shrimp any time soon but definitely worth "Playing" with as another avenue in the hobby.

[lefty o]

interesting, never seen those before.

[KentFishFanUK]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:21 PM, Fish Folk said:

Chasing this down. 
Here’s an article abstract. Looks promising.

I read the same article! And one other with the same result. It does look promising but surely there's a reason everyone uses BBS instead? 

On 9/6/2021 at 3:28 PM, Fish Folk said:

Appears that they can be acquired online here. 

I wasn't really sure about checking eBay, especially from another country, I don't know what the rules are for importing things like this. I did find one UK seller which I will try first anyway I was more pointing out the disparity between availability of artemia cysts and fairy shrimp eggs, maybe they are harder to produce? Some information I saw said they breed easily and prolifically so they shouldn't be buy then I don't really know. 

On 9/6/2021 at 3:33 PM, ARMYVET said:

I was looking them up too..lol 

I found this...

http://www.arizonafairyshrimp.com/eggs_e.html

Ah you Americans get all the luck lol.

On 9/6/2021 at 5:30 PM, ARMYVET said:

Interesting indeed.  I agree that they will not be replacing brine shrimp any time soon but definitely worth "Playing" with as another avenue in the hobby.

That was my thought, might not be replacing brine shrimp but its definitely worth trying. 

I like the idea of providing live fish food in tank - micro predators or fish fry that couldn't eat the adults could be provided a constant supply of nauplii plus they can add to the ecosystem in general, or at least not foul the water if they die uneaten. Also I like the idea that it could be marginally closer to what our fish eat in the wild purely because it's freshwater (not for any reason I could explain, just like the idea - it would appeal to biotope enthusiasts maybe). 

When I have my fish room (how many times have I said that already?!) I will give them a go and report back!

[KentFishFanUK]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:39 PM, Fish Folk said:

This answered all the questions I had about Fairy Shrimp. Good fish food. A bit tricky to multiply without a developed breeding / egg-collecting plan. Harder to gather continuously, so not likely to replace Brine Shrimp. But there are possibilities here that should be considered.

In my uneducated opinion - I agree! Maybe @Cory should get on it haha. Or maybe explain why it's not worth it anyhow?

[ARMYVET]

On 9/6/2021 at 1:01 PM, KentFishFanUK said:

Or maybe explain why it's not worth it anyhow?

Well looking at the cost number one...You only get 1000 eggs for 12 dollars plus shipping.  Where you get a bazillion BBS eggs for the same price.  To keep them going you have to raise them and wait for them grow and then to produce eggs and then the eggs have to be dried for a period of time so they can be rethatched and they only live about 8 weeks.  so you would need multiple cultures before there a way to have them hatching at the same rate they are dying naturally off.

Maybe fun to play with for sure but for a real food source (especially to a breeder who need a lot of BBS) seeing how BBS are basically dirt cheap over all and very easy to hatch and feed not a realistic substitution.   

Still going to try to play with them though...LOL 

[Dkshadowwolf]

While trying to produce your own eggs wouldn’t be cost affective, I would think that a large wholesaler good find the sweet spot where this might be doable.

[KentFishFanUK]

On 9/6/2021 at 6:45 PM, ARMYVET said:

Well looking at the cost number one...You only get 1000 eggs for 12 dollars plus shipping.  Where you get a bazillion BBS eggs for the same price.  To keep them going you have to raise them and wait for them grow and then to produce eggs and then the eggs have to be dried for a period of time so they can be rethatched and they only live about 8 weeks.  so you would need multiple cultures before there a way to have them hatching at the same rate they are dying naturally off.

Maybe fun to play with for sure but for a real food source (especially to a breeder who need a lot of BBS) seeing how BBS are basically dirt cheap over all and very easy to hatch and feed not a realistic substitution.   

Still going to try to play with them though...LOL 

 

On 9/6/2021 at 7:01 PM, Dkshadowwolf said:

While trying to produce your own eggs wouldn’t be cost affective, I would think that a large wholesaler good find the sweet spot where this might be doable.

Yeah BBS are much more available and cheap - but I'm sure a cost effective way of growing large numbers of eggs to sell could be done by anyone with the resources to do the same with brine shrimp?

Seems like you hatch a bunch, let them lay as many eggs as possible for 8 weeks until they die, then collect and dry the eggs and store them until you need them (or sell them).

Would need experimenting with food and conditions to get the largest number of viable eggs but at some point the same must have been done for brine shrimp right? 

Perhaps brine shrimp/live food hatcheries have tried and you simply can't get a comparable yield from them as you can brine shrimp for the same amount of resources? Even in that case there must be a niche for them surely?

[ARMYVET]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:24 PM, KentFishFanUK said:

Would need experimenting with food and conditions to get the largest number of viable eggs but at some point the same must have been done for brine shrimp right? 

I think in that statement you may have answered your own question.  Since it has already been done with brine shrimp what would be the advantage for a company of doing it with Fairy shrimp on a large scale.  Nutritionally they are very similar I would imagine.  There may not be a large enough following for it to warrant the expense of doing the research to make it happen which it is why it is just a niche product.  I had never even heard of them before you mentioned them. 

Still when I do get some to play with...Ill do a posting on it and everybody can play along with me...lol

[Odd Duck]

I’d heard of them, went down the rabbit hole (I like rabbits), and checked for sources then saw the expense and noped out at that point.  I look forward to reading about someone else’s experience and experiments with them since they certainly make sense from a feeding stand point.  I hope it can make sense from an economic stand point, too.

[Fish Folk]

I would like to point out that, as much as I am a fish nerd, the best sort of farm would be a “live food” farm that ships cost effectively.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Fish Folk

[KentFishFanUK]

On 9/6/2021 at 8:45 PM, ARMYVET said:

I think in that statement you may have answered your own question.  Since it has already been done with brine shrimp what would be the advantage for a company of doing it with Fairy shrimp on a large scale.  Nutritionally they are very similar I would imagine.  There may not be a large enough following for it to warrant the expense of doing the research to make it happen which it is why it is just a niche product.  I had never even heard of them before you mentioned them. 

Still when I do get some to play with...Ill do a posting on it and everybody can play along with me...lol

Good point! That makes sense. 

Definitely do a posting on it - I'll do the same when I can. Hopefully others might be interested enough to try too and it can be a bit of a collaborative effort to figure them out! Maybe one day someone like aquarium co-op will pick them up and they will be the next big thing haha. 

[Fish Folk]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:54 PM, KentFishFanUK said:

Good point! That makes sense. 

Definitely do a posting on it - I'll do the same when I can. Hopefully others might be interested enough to try too and it can be a bit of a collaborative effort to figure them out! Maybe one day someone like aquarium co-op will pick them up and they will be the next big thing haha. 

I would buy 3x cultures, and hatch them 1x week apart. Save eggs as described once the adults lay, keep dry and cool for 3x weeks and restart the process.

With 9x plastic trays in a closet it could be done with LED lighting. Yeast … green water … Spirulina … these would be the ongoing needs.

[Odd Duck]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:19 PM, Fish Folk said:

I would buy 3x cultures, and hatch them 1x week apart. Save eggs as described once the adults lay, keep dry and cool for 3x weeks and restart the process.

With 9x plastic trays in a closet it could be done with LED lighting. Yeast … green water … Spirulina … these would be the ongoing needs.

Run with it and make sure to post pictures!  If anybody can breed them, it’s you and your magic water,  😆 😉 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Odd Duck

[Tihshho]

Definitely a fun project. Fairy shrimp are great for tubbing too by the way, so if you want a continuous food source for your outside tubs these are the way to go.

It's been previously covered, but raising and spawning these for egg collection to raise for feeders is just too time intensive, when it comes to BBS eggs have been collected and decades of effort have been put into this process to get high yield egg hatches. Since this work hasn't been done to this volume would be the only reason that fairy shrimp wouldn't be ideal for most of us breeders. I'm sure that this would be a great alternative if the work was put into it. If you put the time and effort into it maybe in 20 years you could be the San Fransisco Bay / Aquarium CO-OP of fairyshrimp eggs 😉 

[Fish Folk]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:21 PM, Odd Duck said:

Run with it and make sure to post pictures!  If anybody can breed them, it’s you and your magic water,  😆 😉 

My issue would be time. It’s a brutally time-intensive enterprise to culture most live foods.

But these sound so much fun! Plus, newly hatched shrimp are much _smaller_ than BBS, which is a major selling point.

[KentFishFanUK]

Looks like it's being done in Thailand:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/greenwaterfarm

https://greenwaterfarmthailand.com/

They ship worldwide as well. 

[Fish Folk]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:25 PM, KentFishFanUK said:

Looks like it's being done in Thailand:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/greenwaterfarm

https://greenwaterfarmthailand.com/

They ship worldwide as well. 

Respect for Thailand breeders! Seriously impressive stuff.

[KentFishFanUK]

On 9/6/2021 at 9:27 PM, Fish Folk said:

Respect for Thailand breeders! Seriously impressive stuff.

Agreed! It even seems like reasonably priced shipping.

[Odd Duck]

On 9/6/2021 at 3:45 PM, KentFishFanUK said:

Agreed! It even seems like reasonably priced shipping.

Yes, but only 6 capsules (look likely to be 0 or 00 caps) for $10.00 compared to brine shrimp eggs at around $10.00 for nearly 2 ounces.  But once started, I guess it would be possible to keep cultures going with some practice and dedication.  The sticking point being the need for the sunken eggs to dry up to become viable.  Darn, those vernal pool inhabitants!

On 9/6/2021 at 3:27 PM, Fish Folk said:

Respect for Thailand breeders! Seriously impressive stuff.

For sure!