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August 16, 2005

Artemia

Artemia is a good food source for both adult and young discus fish. I would not recommend to try to raise the Artemia in to adulthood, adult Artemia is very cheap and widely available in most petshops in blister packages. The Artemia larvea ( the nauplius ) to feed your young discus are only available as eggs, also referred to as cysts.

Feeding the young discus
The first couple of days the young will feed only on the skin secrete of their parents, they will do so, or at least try, for the first couple of weeks. After 6 or 7 days you can start feeding them with Artemia nauplius, these are the just hatched larvae of the Brine Shrimp.

This is the best food source for the young discus, and most other young cichlids as well. You can buy the eggs in most petshops, or order them online. The Brine shrimp is an interesting critter, they live in salt water lakes that seasonally dry out. They can overcome this dry period, which can take years, by producing hard shelled eggs ( the Cysts ). All you need to setup your own Artemia food source are some one or two liter plastic bottles, salt ( seasalt for best results ) and an airpump. And lets don't forget a very fine mazed net, you can buy a special Artemia sieve set. It is very important to clean the nauplius very carefully to get rid of the salt water they hatched in.

Now first prepare the bottle by making a small hole in the lid where the plastic tube of the airpump is fitting in nicely. Put the plastic tube in the lid, all the way to the bottom, and connect it to the airpump. Fill the bottle with one liter of fresh water and put 6 or 7 teaspoons of salt in it. You can setup multiple bottles by making a chain with them, all connected to one single airpump. I will make a drawing of this setup in the future, it seems more difficult than it is, really. Now just put a teaspoon of the Artemia eggs in the bottle, be sure to make the water as turbulent as possible to make the hatching of the nauplius easier. If they are hatched clean them and let the young discus feast on them.

Posted by Front at August 16, 2005 12:34 PM