White stringy poop on my clown

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Maybe - but which is the apples and oranges when you use research according to needs of marine larvae and the needs of adult fishes or the content of nearly hatched naups with the content of adult artemia from its natural habit? You may be right - you may be wrong - but your way of argue does not back up your statement that

If you wrote " not enriched artemia naups as a sole diet for many marine larvae is lethal in the long term" I would be with you - but we did not discuss the rearing of marine larvae with artemia naups - we discuss feeding subadult and adult fish with adult frozen wild artemia. IMO - This is often how myths will be created and conserved - findings in one situation is carbon copied to a whole different situation.

I have feed my 6 years old aquarium wit with only frozen adult artemia and freshwater cyclops the whole time it has been up and running. In two of the public aquariums I have work in - frozen adult artemia and frozen mysis have been 98 % of the feeding for plus 10 years. I have not seen any trace of nutrition defiency or or premature death. Instead I have seen fishes that grow in a rate that correspond to their natural grow rate or slight faster and have a very good colouration. Compare these two fishes - same species - one been in my aquarium for 2 years - one less than 2 months. Two photos with different focus. Guess whom is who. The paler. new one has grown much slower in the wild compared with mine older one that have been in my aquarium for more than 2 years - you can see it on the proportion between the eyes and the body size. A fish eye tends to grow in the the same rate regardless of the nutrient intake (read body grow rate). The deeper colouration of my old fish is probably due to the high astaxanthin content of fresh water cyclops but wild adult artemia is known to contain astaxanthin too

But let us agree that we disagree in this matter

Sincerely Lasse

Lasse,

In your example you said you also feed cyclops and mysids. Those both counter the lack of HUFA's in the brine shrimp. The question was brine shrimp as a sole diet, and that will kill fish eventually.

Jay

 

[Lasse]

Jay - you still refer to investigation done on naups and larvae stage of marine fish where at least EPA and DHA is important and not is biosynthesised from Omega 6 fatty acids either from the naups or the marine larvae. I agree with you about this

However - lately it has been shown that it is not all marine larvae that needs enrichment - please see this article

But you still says that a sole diet of frozen adult artemia will kill fish eventually. (however a progress from your earlier statement that it is lethal) You still says that my success with my feeding is caused of the fresh water cyclops I used - a cyclops that not I and not you have any knowledge at all about the content of EPA and DHA. Neither no one of us know the HUFA content of frozen mysis that we use.

To be clear - I have used only frozen artemia, a combination of adult artemia and fresh water cyclops, at work I have used a combination of adult artemia and mysis and a friend of me (one of the best reefers we have had here in Sweden) - only used frozen adult artemia for + 10 years, The reason why I change from 100 % frozen artemia to 50/50 artemia/cyclops is because that the cyclops contain huge amount of axtansantin and I also have rather much filter feeders

Even if naups can be low (or have a huge variety in concentrations) of EPA and DHA will it not say that well feed adult Artemia do no have enough amount of these essential fatty acids. If they have or not have enough of EPA and DHA depends of their ability to convert ALA into EPA and DHA by themselves. Nowadays we know that at least Artemia franciscana have some capacity for this (from here and here)

We know that marine larvae can' t produce these fatty acids that is very important in the development from larvae to fry - but that' s not the same as that a fry or semi adult do not have this ability. As an example - I have bred many freshwater species from egg to adult only using not enriching naups with no problems. Even species that have a larvae stage (grass carp) but in that case - I think that enrichment have a better outcome. IMO - it is the larvae stage that´s sometimes need EPA and DHA from the outside - marine fishes that release fry (read Banggai cardinalfish) seems not so sensitive for enrichment or not. There have also been shown during the last decades that at least some marine species can synthesize both EPA and DHA from ALA (the common omega 3 in plant and algae) This article is rather interesting

Now to the most important question - do you - in general - need enrichment when you use adult frozen artemia as only source? You probably have seen the large and great review THE USE AND NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF ARTEMIA AS A FOOD SOURCE* The question is - did you reach page 59 and the chapter The use of on-grown and adult Artemia ? (the previous 58 page deal with the the EPA and DHA problem in artemia napuli and how to enrich them (EPA = 20:5w3 and DHA = 22:6w3)

Some quotes

In contrast to the very extensive documentation dealing with the use of Artemia nauplii as a food source, similar literature on the application of on grown and adult Artemia is very limited.

it is only during recent years that reliable techniques have been developed for mass production of pre-adult and adult Artemia. Nevertheless, several arguments support the use o f on-grown and adult Artemia as a food source.

My bold

As compared with freshly hatched nauplii the nutritional value of on-grown and adult Artemia is superior, i.e. protein content increases from an average of 47% in nauplii to 60% on a dry weight basis in adults; furthermore, protein quality improves as adults are rich in all essential amino acids (see later). In contrast to other food organisms, the exoskeleton of adult Artemia is extremely thin which facilitates digestion of the whole animal by the predator

Contrary to what is found in wild adults, the fatty-acid profile of brine shrimp cultured on feeds of terrestrial origin (e.g. agricultural waste products) does not show significant levels of the essential fatty acids 20:5w3 and 22:6w3

From page 58 - there is a lot of descriptions including adult artemia according nutritional values.

However I would be glad to change my mind if you could show any reference based on data where it is shown that use of only wild caught frozen adult artemia (as Ocean Nutritions frozen artemia) will back up your claim

The question was brine shrimp as a sole diet, and that will kill fish eventually.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Gobi1canobi]

How have the fish been acting?
Slow and lethargic, or normal? That could be an indicator as well.

Mine has these issues about the same situation but he is lookin weak and hugging my polyps hard like he wants to nap

 

[Sharkbait19]

Mine has these issues about the same situation but he is lookin weak and hugging my polyps hard like he wants to nap

Is it rubbing close against them? That’s often hosting behavior. Try to post a video.