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Shrimp Eggs
In Digest V2 #1058, "James E. Capelle" <jcapelle at gte_net> wrote:
>This came over from the Rainbowfish mailing list tonight, thought
>someone might like to hear about this. Time to stock up on eggs before
>the price goes out the roof. Jim C.
I have verified that eggs are going to be in extreamly short supply through
two different suppliers. One has already doubled their price and has made
statements indicating that they do not know how long even THAT price will be
good or how long they will be able to keep eggs of ANY quality in stock. The
other supplier has increased prices by a full third and instituted a limit
of three pounds per person (wholesale!) per month!
Apparantly El Nino has increased the rain flowing into the Great Salt Lake
resulting in decreased salinity. Under conditions of decreased salinity,
brine shrimp tend to have live births as opposed to producing cysts. Also,
those cysts that are produced under such conditions tend to be of lower
overall quality.
One answer that my partner and I have found is the use of deencapsulated
brine shrimp cysts. These are not the ones occassionally seen in aquarium
stores for hatching at two to three times the normal costs of cysts. These
are made from junk grade cysts for the aquaculture industry. As the shells
have been removed, they are 100% food and as none of the energy has been
expended by a hatching and growing artemia, they have a higher overall
energy density than live nauplii. I've found one supplier that is selling me
the cysts for approximately $20/500 gram (20 cans in a 10kg case) and if
anyone is interested, I could resell cans for $25 including s/h & applicable
sales tax. I'm also looking into prices and quality at another distributor,
so I might be able to offer an even better price later on.
Didn't mean for this to get commercial, but the deencapsulated cysts may be
a viable solution for those of us keeping large numbers of fry. Our
apistogramma sp. & corydoras sp. are going after these cysts just like they
would live nauplii.
-- dj