Did I accidentally grow brine shrimp?

kfries · Oct 17, 2023

I had setup a hospital tank to tryand save a clown fish with velvet. I used a tank i was trying to culture pods in. The pods experiment did not work. I washed the tank out and set it up for the clown. I doesed copper. The clown died two days later. I didnt get a chance to clean the tank before we left for a 6 day trip. I came home and noticed these little guys swimming about. They are white. The pods i was trying to grow where not this big. I did feed the clown some frozen brine shrimp. I did not use any display water. There is no heat or water circulation or air in this tank. I will try to get a better photo. My phone is not focusing well.

Timfish · Oct 17, 2023

A video showing the swimmerettes are actually moving would be needed to confirm the brine shrimp are alive. The pictures you posted don't give any indication of live ones but do suggest the lower left one is just a dead body. FWIW it takes brine shrimp a while to grow up after hatching and copper is going to kill them so from your description it's not possible any "grew up" or that any are alive.

kfries · Oct 17, 2023

Timfish said:
A video showing the swimmerettes are actually moving would be needed to confirm the brine shrimp are alive. The pictures you posted don't give any indication of live ones but do suggest the lower left one is just a dead body. FWIW it takes brine shrimp a while to grow up after hatching and copper is going to kill them so from your description it's not possible any "grew up" or that any are alive.

How do i post a video?

Timfish · Oct 17, 2023

Upload your video to vimeo or youtube then paste the link to your post.

kfries · Oct 17, 2023

kfries said:
How do i post a video?

kfries · Oct 17, 2023

Timfish · Oct 17, 2023

Yes, you have live brine shrimp. Based on what you've described you did it's not possible. Since brine shrimp won't survive freezing and take weeks to grow to adult size the alternative is live brine were added in teh recent past.

kfries · Oct 17, 2023

Timfish said:
Yes, you have live brine shrimp. Based on what you've described you did it's not possible. Since brine shrimp won't survive freezing and take weeks to grow to adult size the alternative is live brine were added in teh recent past.

Could they have grown from fish food? I washed the tank out October 8th. Treated it with Fritz copper safe. Put my clown in it for two days. It died. I pulled the dead fish out, turned the air stone, heater and lights off and went to vegas for six days. Didn't win any money but came home to brine shrimp. Here comes the stupid question, would you feed them to your dislay tank?

Jmp998 · Oct 17, 2023

Brine shrimp eggs can survive freezing (this is actually recommended for long term storage). It is conceivable there were some eggs that survived in the frozen food. It is also possible some dry/powdered food that was fed contained brine shrimp eggs.

I would agree it seems soon for them to get that big, but it is possible there were smaller ones before you left for your trip that you did not notice. I am a little surprised the copper did not wipe them out, but I don't know how high they can tolerate as compared to other inverts.

PeterEde · Oct 18, 2023

looks like brine and if you dont feed them all to your fish they will breed if you feed them

Kasrift · Oct 18, 2023

Jmp998 said:
Brine shrimp eggs can survive freezing (this is actually recommended for long term storage). It is conceivable there were some eggs that survived in the frozen food. It is also possible some dry/powdered food that was fed contained brine shrimp eggs.

I would agree it seems soon for them to get that big, but it is possible there were smaller ones before you left for your trip that you did not notice. I am a little surprised the copper did not wipe them out, but I don't know how high they can tolerate as compared to other inverts.

The fact that copper didn't kill them should be an indicator as to why it didn't help the clownfish maybe.

kevgib67 · Oct 18, 2023

I get what appears to be a bloom of baby mysis shrimp swimming around after lights are off ( much bigger than pods). No clue how they got in , hitchhiked? I first noticed them 6-8 months ago and I never see full grown ones. Oh, the obligatory O-H!