Best way to introduce Selcon into live foods?

Just as the title states, I'm looking for the best way to introduce Selcon or any HUFAs into LIVE foods, namely brine.

Brine shrimp is not very nutritive, however, it is a readily available food source. I was looking for any assistance with the best types of foods and the best ways to gut load these critters for a more healthy snack. My mandarin loves these guys, my firefish and clown can't get enough.....heck, even my algae blenny joins in on the festivities now and again so I want to make it as good for them as possible.

Remember, these are live brine, not frozen and thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer!!

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Just some examples of how I've been trying it:

1. Strain shrimp from their tank
2. Drip selcon over them
3. Let the whole writhing shrimp blob sit for 5 minutes or so fully saturated
4. Rinse in fresh water
5. Dump in tank
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1. Take a couple of baster-fulls of shrimp with water
2. Place in clean tupperware
3. Drip selcon in water
4. Strain and rinse
5. Dump in tank
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1. Soak flake food (omnivore) in selcon
2. Feed to brine
3. strain brine
4. Dump in tank

 

To be honest, I just pour it directly into my tank. Luna

 

Really? And it works that way? I'm a bit turned off of doing that. The only reason I say this is because when I don't rinse off the selcon and it gets into the tank my skimmer goes crazy for an hour or so, shooting bubbles EVERYWHERE in the DT.....I would think this would cause the same thing. Is the occastional introduction of bubbles ok?

 

Im sorry, let me repharse how I do it.

My skimmer is off from 11pm to 11am. I dose it every 3-4 days and at 530am, so the "tank" has enough time to "consume" it before the skimmer gets to it.


Luna

 

Awesome Thank you for that!!!

 

First of all, brine shrimp raised from GSL cysts have protein levels running 55 to 60 percent for juveniles and adults.
That's higher than a lot of commercial foods prepared for salt water fish.
Brine shrimp when first hatched, (nauplii) have lower protein levels but have a high fatty acid profile. As the brine proceed through the molts the protein level increases and the fatty acid level decreases.
Pouring selco over the brine and then rinsing will not be of any benefit as it does not soak in to live brine. They might ingest some in the five minutes you soak but not near enough.
Brine shrimp can be gut loaded with anything that will stay in suspension and is appropriately sized for them to eat.
You could use vitamins, spirulina, any of the Selco's, or Algamac products, to name a few.
I don't know what size brine you are using, but the older they get the shorter the time to gut load.
Newborn instar 1 cannot be gut loaded as they have no mouth or anus. Instar two (at about 24 hours after hatchout) can be gut loaded but it takes 24 hours, best done in two stages of 12 hours each with new water and food for the second stage.
They progressively decrease hatching time to the point that adults will gut load in about an hour and a half.
I take out some brine that I intend to feed and put them in salt water in an inverted pop bottle and aerate. Just add a small amount of the enrichment you want to use and let them feed for an appropriate time.
I personally would never add the enrichment to the display tank. Instead, if I want tank inhabitants to benefit from an enrichment, I feed it to rotifers and then add them to the tank, allowing anything that will consume rotifers to be able to be enriched via the rotifers.
For enrichment, I no longer use the Selco emulsions as the Agromac powdered products store better, keeping for a longer period of time.