I have no measurable nitrates/nitrites and usually feed one day freshly hatched bbs and the next day off those same shrimp but once they're enriched. I've lost about 4 out of 30 something fry. Do you think it's better to feed only enriched or do you think fresh hatched then enriched is a good schedule?
First of all, the water quality that incentivises nasty bacterial growth CANNOT be tested for with any kit available to the hobbyist. For that reason seahorse keepers are obliged to be proactive rather than reactive in husbandry/water change protocols.
IMO, freshly hatched brine nauplii ARE NOT ideal for feeding at any time other than emergency use.
The Instar I stage, while having remnants of the egg sack that starts deteriorating immediately upon hatching, does NOT have DHA with it, but also, the carapace is tougher in that first stage making it much harder for the already rudimentary digestive tract to digest and get the benefit of any nutrition that it may provide.
So yes, IMO feeding properly enriched nauplii (enrichment needs a DHA component) is the ONLY way to feed dwarf seahorses. Remember too that the enrichment quickly fades so that the later part of the day they would again be feeding off of inferior nutrition unless you replace the depleted nauplii with newly enriched.
If you ONLY want to feed once a day, the best you could accomplish is to go BEYOND just gut loading them so instead of enriching with proper enrichment for ONE twelve hour period to gut load them, rinse well and with new water and new enrichment do ANOTHER twelve hour period so that by the end of the second period, the enrichment will now be assimilated into their flesh. This way as the gut loading nutrition is lost, they still have some added benefit from the flesh assimilation.
