looking at a couple frozen foods mail order, I don't have a local place that sells frozen foods... these are both frozen cubes
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is there much nutritional difference or palatability between Frozen Brine & Frozen Mysis shrimp???
- Thread starter Magnum Man
- Start date
Uberhoust
Fish Herder
I view the frozen food as a treat for the fish, I don't know which is more healthy but my fish prefer Brine shrimp to Mysis shrimp. Literature on the net suggest that Mysis has more protein.
TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
I feed a fair amount of frozen and have for years. I rarely serve just one food.
For adults (but not smaller species) my ideal mix contains: Mysis and Brine Shrimp, Brine gut loaded w/spirulina, blood worms (both mini and regular) and daphnia. I used to add tubifex worms, but some of my fish would not eat them, so I stopped using them.
For Fry and smaller species adults my ideal mix contains: cyclops, rotifers and daphnia. I also keep a few packs of BBS on hand for special situations as I gave up hatching them a while ago. Recently, it has become hard to find cyclops.
None of the fish I fed the above have refused to eat any of the content (or any commercial foods) unless it was too big for them. But then, the larger ones in the tank ate it. I do not know if there is a big nutritional difference between the 3 forms of shrimp above, and I most certainly cannot track which specific fish are not eating any of them or are eating some or all of them. What I do know is that every fish I have ever kept was/is a pig which will try to eat almost anything it thinks might be food.
What I really miss was Cyclop-eeze, a biologically engineered organism of the Copepod family. The only population was in a northern Canadian Lake and it crashed some years ago and that was the end of them. It came in frozen, freeze dried and flake forms.
Also, if you have enough fish to feed, the 1 pound slabs are the more economical bet. I buy from a place geared for people with a fishroom or more. I don't have central room, but I do have 20 tanks. So I need to buy buy about 12-15 pounds of frozen twice a year. But, I cannot get it all in one place as some of it is only available as cubes.
There are 2 places I may look to buy the foods which my main source (Jehmco.com) doesn't stock. They are liveaquaria.com and kensfish.com. I usually am motivated to shop when either of the 2 have a sale.
The best foods are first live, then frozen and then commercial (mostly brand name dry foods and/or mixes). With commercial one must pay attention to ingredients and nutritional values listed for them.
For adults (but not smaller species) my ideal mix contains: Mysis and Brine Shrimp, Brine gut loaded w/spirulina, blood worms (both mini and regular) and daphnia. I used to add tubifex worms, but some of my fish would not eat them, so I stopped using them.
For Fry and smaller species adults my ideal mix contains: cyclops, rotifers and daphnia. I also keep a few packs of BBS on hand for special situations as I gave up hatching them a while ago. Recently, it has become hard to find cyclops.
None of the fish I fed the above have refused to eat any of the content (or any commercial foods) unless it was too big for them. But then, the larger ones in the tank ate it. I do not know if there is a big nutritional difference between the 3 forms of shrimp above, and I most certainly cannot track which specific fish are not eating any of them or are eating some or all of them. What I do know is that every fish I have ever kept was/is a pig which will try to eat almost anything it thinks might be food.
What I really miss was Cyclop-eeze, a biologically engineered organism of the Copepod family. The only population was in a northern Canadian Lake and it crashed some years ago and that was the end of them. It came in frozen, freeze dried and flake forms.
Also, if you have enough fish to feed, the 1 pound slabs are the more economical bet. I buy from a place geared for people with a fishroom or more. I don't have central room, but I do have 20 tanks. So I need to buy buy about 12-15 pounds of frozen twice a year. But, I cannot get it all in one place as some of it is only available as cubes.
There are 2 places I may look to buy the foods which my main source (Jehmco.com) doesn't stock. They are liveaquaria.com and kensfish.com. I usually am motivated to shop when either of the 2 have a sale.
The best foods are first live, then frozen and then commercial (mostly brand name dry foods and/or mixes). With commercial one must pay attention to ingredients and nutritional values listed for them.
Mysis are larger, so not as good for the smaller fish I keep. If you have to chop them up, buy 'dessert shrimp', the little northern ones common on our continent for a lot less.
I sometimes make my own mixes with supermarket ingredients, freeze them into sheets and use them instead of commercial sheets of brine shrimp, bloodworm or mysis.
The oldtimers used beefheart as a substitute for then expensive sea food, and other than a few people who didn't get the memo and made beef or goat heart a tradition, people take the old beefheart recipes and use healthier chopped (I use a stick blender) northern shrimp, white fish, mock crab, etc as the protein base and build out. 2 hours work in the kitchen can get you a year's supply, at slightly cheaper than frozen artemia, but with no shipping.
I sometimes make my own mixes with supermarket ingredients, freeze them into sheets and use them instead of commercial sheets of brine shrimp, bloodworm or mysis.
The oldtimers used beefheart as a substitute for then expensive sea food, and other than a few people who didn't get the memo and made beef or goat heart a tradition, people take the old beefheart recipes and use healthier chopped (I use a stick blender) northern shrimp, white fish, mock crab, etc as the protein base and build out. 2 hours work in the kitchen can get you a year's supply, at slightly cheaper than frozen artemia, but with no shipping.
Here’s my tired old rant . Frozen brine shrimp isn’t what it used to be . Years ago I bought San Francisco Bay Brand frozen brine shrimp and it smelled good . It was reddish pink and looked good . In other words it seemed healthy and nutritious for my fish . Today’s stuff is grey and dead and stinks and is inferior to the old San Francisco Bay brine shrimp . I stopped feeding it and rely on live foods .
Mysis is slightly better but lots of small fish prefer the taste of brineshrimp.
Raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp can also be used. Buy a couple of kilos of prawn from the bait freezer at a fishing store or seafood freezer at a supermarket. Keep them frozen until needed. Defrost a couple, remove the head, shell and gut (thin black tube in body) and throw these bits in the compost or bin (bin if you have a dog). Use a pr of scissors to cut the remaining prawn into bite size pieces. offer a few bits at a time until the fish are full.
*NB*. If you have crustaceans in the tank, use cooked prawn so you don't introduce any diseases that can kill the shrimp/ crabs you are keeping.
You can also use raw or cooked fish, squid and mussel meat. Get them from the same place as the prawn and defrost a few, chop them up and feed them to the fish. Mussel meat can be expensive and you can't always see what it looks like if in the shell. Either buy human food grade mussels or check the colour before buying and make sure they don't smell bad when using.
Raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp can also be used. Buy a couple of kilos of prawn from the bait freezer at a fishing store or seafood freezer at a supermarket. Keep them frozen until needed. Defrost a couple, remove the head, shell and gut (thin black tube in body) and throw these bits in the compost or bin (bin if you have a dog). Use a pr of scissors to cut the remaining prawn into bite size pieces. offer a few bits at a time until the fish are full.
*NB*. If you have crustaceans in the tank, use cooked prawn so you don't introduce any diseases that can kill the shrimp/ crabs you are keeping.
You can also use raw or cooked fish, squid and mussel meat. Get them from the same place as the prawn and defrost a few, chop them up and feed them to the fish. Mussel meat can be expensive and you can't always see what it looks like if in the shell. Either buy human food grade mussels or check the colour before buying and make sure they don't smell bad when using.
That's actually going for a lot of fish foods in general. Supply chain shortages and inflation forced many companies to change up their formulas and it was rarely for the better. If you have a food that you trusted, it's not a bad idea to reassess it to see if it still meets your expectations.
Last edited:
OP
OP
Ended up with mom in the ER later this afternoon, so no chance to get out of town, in search of frozen food… so I stopped at Walmart, and picked up a bag of small, raw, deshelled, and deveined shrimp… diced up 1/2 of one as fine as I could, and fed it to my African Tetra tank ( have some new wild caught fish, I can’t get to eat yet ) too much competition for that for the new fish, but it seemed to go over well
OP
OP
just a cold, & she's a bit of a hypochondriac... all her tests came back OK... Thanks for asking
TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
As for mysis being larger than brine, my supplier offers mysis in two ways. I have both.
or
| Frozen Mysid species - small 1 Kg (2.2 LBS) contains 2 x 500 gm flat packs | 2 x 500gm @ $10.50 = $21.00 |
| Frozen Mysis* (Mysis relicta) Canadian Mysis 2.5 LBS (1.13 Kgs) Mysis contains very high HUFA levels and makes an excellent conditioning feed. | $20.00 |
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