Brine Shrimp?

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d3r

Gambusia
MFK Member
Nov 9, 2013
159
0
16
Detroit, MI (motor city)
hey guys, rookie Piranha keeper here still learning.

i know you're supposed to feed piranha fry baby brine shrimps once their egg sack is gone.. but that got me thinking.

would it be worth it to hatch and raise brine shrimp to adulthood in home to feed to adult piranhas?

would they even bother to eat something so small? And could it be a staple food? would it be enough nutrition?

i have 8 red bellies (6'' to 8") that currently eat:
-Freeze dried Krill
-Frozen beef heart and blood worm cubes
-Carnivore pellets
-Live guppies once every other month.
-Algae wafers (idk if thats normal but they take little nibbles of the wafers i drop in for the pleco)

i feel like they get bored of eating the same stuff.

They dont touch the frozen brine shrimp cubes but i feel like itd be different if they're live. Looked at local shops and none of them sell live brine shrimp..just frozen or eggs.
 
baby Artemia sp. is fed to many baby fish due to it's size and a lot of baby fish won't take any other food other than live. For piranhas that size it wouldn't be worth it. To grow them out to adulthood would only get you a shrimp only 4 mm or so long. Too small for a piranha that size IME. I think your diet for them is really good though i would cut out the beef heart as a staple, it's more of a treat. I would cycle in some white fish like tilapia, or smelt. I've fed piraya that absolutely loved whole squid.
 
Thanks. Yea, their size has made me skeptical. I feel like my reds MIGHT go for em and enjoy suckin down a cloud of brines.. but then i wonder if it'd even put a dent in their appetite. or if they would even eat em at all. but i agree...they're probably much too small. and if they dont then I'm gonna have a crap load of free swimming shrimp in my tank hahah

also my girlfriend insists on giving them tilapia from time to time..i forgot to list it. i try to stay away from it because it absolutely destroys the cleanliness of the water while they're ripping into it. is that healthy enough to be a staple?

I feed them every other day and add in 3assorted frozen cubes probably twice a week or so...is that too many cubes?
 
Ive always done Monday Wednesday Saturday for my piranhas for both larger shoals and solo Serras.

A lot of people use tilapia as a staple you just cut it up into bite size pieces to minimize the mess of tearing at it. In pieces it also lowers the risk of them accidentally biting eachother when feeding.

I dont know about the frozen cubes. Do they eat it all? I imagine they don't due to the size, and if thats the case it may effect water quality.

Also brine shrimp are hatched and raised in salt water. They would most likely die in freshwater if they weren't eaten promptly and cause water quality issues as well.


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Hmmmm maybe ill cut a bunch up into small cubes/ some fresh and some frozen and add it into the weekly diet.

n yea they eat all the cubes.. very rarely do i have anything i put in there uneaten..especially the bloodworms/beefheart cubes.
 
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