Fairy shrimp eggs?

[warrior]

I see these for sale on ebay and my question is are they good for newly hatched newt larvae?I've read here somebody said don't feed them to newt larvae but adult newts love them.Are they easy to culture and are they harmless to newts?

 

[Azhael]

These are just like brine shrimp. Anostraceans are a part of the diet of many species in the wild and can be used safely. As crustaceans they are an excellent part of a balanced diet, and they are better than brine shrimp sincefresh-water species are better than brine shrimp because they don´t contain the salts and can also survive in the caudate´s water. I´ve tried my hand at culturing these once and it was fun. The newts loved them.
You can culture them just like you would culture Daphnia. They are a bit more fragile in my experience, though, and don´t tolerate being left unatended even for a couple of days.

 

[AngieD]

Do cultures of them 'crash' for no apparent reason, like daphnia?

 

[warrior]

All this is good to know but can they be fed to newt larvae?I've read here they can be fed to adult newts with no problem but have you experience in feeding them to newt larvae?

 

[Azhael]

Personally, no, but i can´t see how it would be any different feeding brine shrimp nauplii than any other anostracean (who also have nauplii larvae), to newt larvae. As i said, it´s even preferable to use the fresh-water species.

Angie, i imagine they do. Daphnia seem to be more tolerant and hardy, but then again, my experience is extremely limited, so i may be very wrong. This said, i left a few eggs in a vase in my parent´s terrace that got green with algae from the sunlight and about a month later, there were adults happily munching in there, so i´d say that depending on the culture method, they could be very easy.