Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs

I recently purchased a large can of brine shrimp eggs from brineshrimpdirect.com and also received a free tube of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Here's an excerpt from the product discription:
"We have chemically removed or oxidized the outer shell, the chorion, using a concentrated chlorine solution. This process leaves the thin hatching membrane surrounding the unhatched brine shrimp embryo intact."
I am a little leary of using this. I have no other use for this particular kind of food since I don't keep fish. Anyone have any opinions on feeding this (rehydrated) to larvae? I was thinking they might ingest some of this along with the live brine shrimp.

(Message edited by 2tanker on February 14, 2006)

The decapsulated should hatch just like the regular brine shrimp eggs but with the advantage that there are no shells to seperate from the larva.

Ed

Here's the complete product discription:

"Decapsulated Brine Shrimp Eggs
Also known as "topless" or shell-free, Decapsulated Brine Shrimp Eggs are fed directly to a wide variety of tropical fish - providing excellent nutritional value without the necessity and down-time of hatching.
We have chemically removed or oxidized the outer shell, the chorion, using a concentrated chlorine solution. This process leaves the thin hatching membrane surrounding the unhatched brine shrimp embryo intact.

Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs have a higher energy value than live brine shrimp since the energy consumed in the hatching process is conserved. Lipids and amino acids are left intact.

Simply rehydrate the decapsulated brine shrimp eggs for a few minutes in fresh water and feed directly to your fry or juveniles (This step is not necessary for adult fish.).

Note: A small amount of decapsulated eggs goes a long way. Don't overfeed.

Again, these are non-hatching. The oxidation process is exothermic and generates heat in excess of the lethal temperature of the embryo. The further dehydration of the egg to maintain its shelf life renders the egg non-viable.

An excellent feed for angelfish, goldfish, and guppies! Also well accepted by coryadora and plecostami" from brineshrimpdirect.com

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>Edward Kowalski wrote on Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 - 23:58 :</font>

"The decapsulated should hatch just like the regular brine shrimp eggs"<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>
I think that's true if you freshly decapsulate your own. But after decapsulation and storage they decrease in hatch rate much faster than regular bs eggs. The ones Meghan got would probably not hatch well enough to bother with hatching them. Meghan, would you be willing to try hatching some and see what happens?

I think if newt larvae ingested unhatched decapsulated eggs, they wouldn't be harmful because the hard outer shell isn't there. But I doubt that the larvae would eat them much, as they don't move.

What Jenn said. They are commonly used to feed fish fry once they are a few weeks old as you can just decapsulate any low grade eggs you have on hand and feed them. Once the fish associate small and orange things with food they can be weaned onto it relatively easily. I doubt most larvae would eat them though without leaving lots of leftovers.

(Message edited by fishkeeper on February 15, 2006)

My time with decapsulated bs eggs is back when you did it yourself to avoid the shells impacting the fish fry (and it shows how long ago it was)....


Ed

Jen, would be happy to give it a go. To be continued....

Hi Meghan,
I've used the rehydrated and some larvae will eat it mixed with live. Their is a way to decapsulate viable eggs and hatch them but the decapaulated brine shrimp direct sells is a different thing. i just got a can of premium cysts today and didn't get a free sample.