Baby brine shrimp

I was thinking of getting one of those continuous hatch and feed setups for my tank and putting it in the refugium. This would be for supplemental food for my mandarin, that is assuming that the mandarin will eat the bbs. It works well in my seahorse tank so I figure it is worth a shot. Anyway, my question is will the mandarin eat bbs?

 

what kind of mandarin?

 

....maybe a stupid noob question and i hate to hijack your thread but, why can't you just throw the BBS in the fuge? y do you need the continous hatch and feed in the fuge?

 

Ive acctually already setup a brine shrimp hatchery but thaey are all to small for my manderin at this point.. i have the same hopes as you do and i will keep you all posted on how it goes...

 

my local fish store sells live brine shrimp by the teaspoon. just a thought

 

my LFS sells brine shrimp aswell but im goin to try it with my own brine because i can try a variety of sizes and presentation without burning a hole in my wallet, (not that theyre expensive but i already have it setup so hush!) haha

 

Its a green mandarin. My LFS doesn't sell live brine shrimp and the hatcher is really simple so its not a problem. Plus my LFS doesn't have the best track record for healthy animals...

 

It could be worth shot, specially if you already have the set-up. The only problem I would see is all the other fish getting them as they come through the return pump before the mandarin has a chance. I would second the thought of target feeding them.

 

I would hatch them in a separate system, that many brine shrimp are bound to have an impact on your params depending on how big the system is, just my thinking though

 

I would never hatch brine shrimp cysts in any fish system. The cysts are known carriers of nasty bacteria, and, they empty cyst shells, if they get into the system, can be ingested by fish and are know to cause intestinal blockages.
Few mandarins will eat brine shrimp, but the ones that do almost never eat adults, but rather pick at the smaller BBS and small juveniles.
For the best info on artemia, including the recommendation to rinse before feeding them to your fish, see the United Nations article below. Click on the link and scroll down to section 4.0 Artemia.
Table of Contents