Just Wondering About Fry Food?

If I have been hatching decapsulated brine shrimp eggs is this just a waste of time, I mean can goldfish fry just eat the un-hatched, un-shelled eggs?
The brand I have is Artemia Revolution decapsulated eggs?

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Grant's Reply


Hi

It can be confusing when purchasing brine shrimp eggs for fry as there are three options:

1. Regular brine shrimp eggs (cysts)
2. Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs - non-hatching and
3. Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs - hatching.

One question to clear up immediately is regular brine shrimp eggs must be hatched before feeding to fry.
Fry can’t digest the hard shell that protects the cyst. Fry will often swallow shells and un-hatched cysts and you can see them passing through the gut.

I try not to introduce too many shells into the fry tank with the hatched nauplii as I occasionally see dead fry with their gut full of shells. I suspect if they eat too many shells they may clog the gut.

Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs have been dipped in ammonia which strips away the shell.
Some are sold as non-hatching and claim to provide essential amino acids lacking in hatched brine shrimp. (Salt water fry will die if fed exclusively brine shrimp nauplii. Fresh water fry get their amino acids from elsewhere).

The hatch-able decapsulated brine shrimp eggs have the advantage of removing the problem of shells getting into the fry tank.

To answer your question, yes you can feed the decapsulated eggs without first hatching them, but I have found that my fry show little interest in the non-hatching decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. You may get a different result with the hatch-able eggs.

Try feeding your fry a few un-hatched eggs and check their interest level. If your fry show the same amount of interest as mine do, it is easy enough to continue hatching them.

For those concerned about whether to use regular brine shrimp eggs or hatch-able decapsulated eggs, I have used regular brine shrimp eggs successfully for many, many years.