Question: Fairy Shrimp as Food?

I was looking for some live food for my little axies and stumbled upon some fairy shrimp eggs. I was just wondering if they would be ok to feed to the axies as apposed to brine shrimp bbs?

gfsward said:

I was looking for some live food for my little axies and stumbled upon some fairy shrimp eggs. I was just wondering if they would be ok to feed to the axies as apposed to brine shrimp bbs?

Click to expand...

I culture over a half dozen species of fairy and tadpole shrimp as an additional hobby.

They are just fine to feed to amphibians however keep in mind the following:

The adults of some species WILL eat larvae.
They are much more difficult to culture.
They take much longer to culture.
The yield percentages are comparably low.
The amount needed to use as rear a staple requires significantly more resources.
The start up cost is obscene when compared to artemia.
Most fairy shrimp suppliers wild harvest and thus run a significantly higher risk of including contagious vectors and unwanted pests to your pets as they inhabit the same vernal pools in the wild.

Don Dasis (dadasis on eBay) is the best supplier I have found AND none of his stock is wild harvested.

Arizona Fairy shrimp is also pretty good, but they specialize in desert species and these are just as difficult as midwestern species and have drastically different culture requirements.

Triops make a nice occasional snack for adults, especially ambystomidae, but again take longer to culture and are very risky to small larvae as they will eat any and everything.