Using unhatched Brime Shrimp Eggs as tropical "live" fish food?

I was reading everywhere that live Baby Brime Shrimp (BBS) is best food for fry, due to it being small enough for fry and still having the york sac.

It also says adult Brime Shrimps are not as nutritious as BBS so why even hatch them is there a valid reason not to use the eggs direct?


Thanks all

You have to hatch the eggs...

Whether it be the 2 liter bottle set up
Or the little black box set up
Or the in tank hatchery set up...

You have to hatch them, you can't feed the eggs direct. You just want to feed out the baby brine shrimp before they grow into adult brine shrimp, where as they're too big for most newly born/hatched fry to eat.

Hope this answers your question... If you need anything else, just let us know.

Another reason to hatch them is to separate them from the shells. It has been said that the tiny shells can block the fry's digestive tract and kill them.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Some places sell decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Basically they are unhatched eggs without the shell. I have read once that fry do not absorb nutrition from them as easily as baby brine shrimp.

Frozen brine shrimp are convenient and almost as good as live ones. Fry are attracted to the movement of live baby brine shrimp, but they can learn to eat frozen shrimp and flake food. Hikari First Bites is also good, and it adds some variety as well as nutrition. One advantage of the in tank brine shrimp hatchery is that almost all the shrimp get eaten so nothing winds up on the aquarium floor.

I'll add... that I absolutely don't have the patience for hatching them... I always run out... can't keep enough hatched to feed the big batches... Yada yada...

So I rely totally on the frozen. I just scoop up a little tank water and dissolve the frozen bbs in the tank water, then dump it back in.

The only reason that I haven't tried the in tank hatchery is because I spend ALL MY MONEY ON MORE FISH!!! UG!!!

Every so often, the on line stores will have the in tank hatcheries on sale for ten or eleven dollars. Everybody should have at least two.

In a pinch when we have a batch that fails we have used the jar of baby brine shrimp which we buy from That Pet Place on the web, it is about 9 dollars. At least the fry don't starve until we can get another batch of BBS going. This is also good when taking them from brine to dry food. However once the jar is opened you have to refrigerate and it is only good for 45 days after opening.
Karen and Jim

Once or twice a year, I buy a fairly large quantity of Hikari frozen brine shrimp (one pound packages of mature and the pop out blister packs of newly hatched)from drsfostersmith.com. They pack everything in ice and charge about $20.00 for shipping and handling any size order. They also have frozen daphnia, which rainbow fish really like.