Bypassing Baby Brine - Straight to Otohime for Clown Larvae?

[mwp]

I'm curious to know if folks are doing this - starting clowns out on rotifers and then around 5-6 days starting to add in Otohime, completely bypassing the Baby Brine Shrimp stage? If you've tried this (or do this routinely) what kind of results do you get?

Thanks!

Matt

[Kathy55g]

DMAN is quite successful this way.

[Heterodonut]

Matt, I have a batch of Clarkii's and I am thinking about doing this, but I was trying to get the same info. Dman, if you can please tell us what you are doing.

[David M]

And the point would be? I start bs and oto A at the same time or even a day earlier with the oto but why would you eliminate the brine shrimp?

[mwp]

Why hatch BS if you don't need to? Doesn't OTO have a better nutritional profile than NHBBS anyway?

Just not wanting to deal with hatching BBS if I don't need to I guess

Matt

[Heterodonut]

I guess it depends on what you use to enrich your shrimp. I'm not going to eliminate artemia, but Wilkerson suggests holding off artemia for clarkii until at least day eight.

[Dman]

Originally posted by Kathy55g
DMAN is quite successful this way.

Kathy's right, I've never hatched BBS. OK, I tried it once and I sucked at it, that was almost 6 years ago.
So I started crushing and sieving CE, then Randy turned me on to Oto and I haven't looked back.

[David M]

I'd guess I have been culturing bs twice a day for at least 4 years now, maybe 5. It's just habbit, like making coffee. I'm sure I can do it in my sleep and from the looks of the sink some mornings I think I have

I'll confess something personal here, I am a sleep walker. I have found some very odd things in the fishroom on occasion

[damer]

sorry mwp this is a bit off topic, but can someone please explain the difference between otohime a and otohime b?

this is now available in aus. (well oto a anyway) and was thinking of getting some.

also what size do you use.

[Luis A M]

particle size.a is extremely small,perhaps for rotifer replacement attempts.
b1 is fine for bs replacement

[David M]

As I said above, making bbs is just habit for me and I automatically use it. However recently I have discovered that in most cases I can get larvae on to oto A a day before they will take artemia. In fact the current batch of allardi's is gorging on oto so well that I'm sure I could eliminate the brine shrimp. It's tough to break a habbit though, last night I'm standing there looking at the fat fish (after feeding out oto) while holding the bbs in hand. I'm telling myself... they don't need it, they don't need it... and IN it goes I just couldn't bring myself to not do it I will try to restrain myself on a batch of tomatos or something I don't really care about just to see how it goes.

[mwp]

David, HA! Allardi's? Congrats, I had no clue you were working with them! How easy have they been to raise (compared to something like a clarkii)?

I gotta say, the perc babies in Batch VIII took to the Otohime A without ANY problems. However, while they do eat it, they don't GORGE themselves quite as much as they do on BBS. Diet wise, I believe Otohime is superior nutrition than BBS.

Matt

[Kmiec123]

I guess with BB being water quality killers, not a bag idea. Any scientific of studies backing that comment I read about BB causing liver problems? Just wondering and will be interesting to fallow...Carl

[Dman]

BBS has also been linked to sudden fright syndrome, Dr. Wilkerson suggests weaning them off BBS about two weeks before you want to move them.

[David M]

I think one of the problems I've had is an overdependence on bbs, feeding too much for too long. I'm forcing myself to cut down just to see if it helps.

K- As for water quality, bbs stays alive until eaten, oto just falls to the bottom and rots. You decide

Matt- the allards are the first clarkii complex fish I've raised so I have nothing to compare them to. I have about 4 from the first try, 70 from the second, zero from batch 3 & 4 and now maybe ~200 just entering met. They grow very fast compared to o's, gsm's and toms. The 70 are barely two months old and nearly ready to sell at 1". The color is pale though so I'll wait another month.

[mwp]

Really, 1" and the color is pale? The male pictured in my log is was maybe only 1.25" at time of photograph (granted, wild caught). I've seen them at 1" or smaller and they were VIBRANT. Maybe they need a different carotenoid than astaxanthin in order to show the vibrant YELLOWS? Xanthophyll? Marigold Petals?

Matt

[mwp]

BTW, how long did you have the pair before they started, and how big are they now? Are they in full on adult coloration (i.e. solid white tails on either / both)?

Matt

[Baalz]

Originally posted by David M
I think one of the problems I've had is an overdependence on bbs, feeding too much for too long. I'm forcing myself to cut down just to see if it helps.

K- As for water quality, bbs stays alive until eaten, oto just falls to the bottom and rots. You decide

Matt- the allards are the first clarkii complex fish I've raised so I have nothing to compare them to. I have about 4 from the first try, 70 from the second, zero from batch 3 & 4 and now maybe ~200 just entering met. They grow very fast compared to o's, gsm's and toms. The 70 are barely two months old and nearly ready to sell at 1". The color is pale though so I'll wait another month. [/B]

The problem I find with this is if you over feed brine for any reason. The bbs continue to morph into their multiple stages. Where they have increasingly more sharp appendages which probably cause larvae deaths. Everyone can agree the fastest you can get them off of bbs the better off your hatch will be.

[ediaz]

Thats true, but if you have leftover artemia molting in a tank for several days it means you accidentally introduced or are feeding to much, the ideal is to feed enough to be consumed in hours.

[David M]

Yea, "leftover" artemia is not typically an issue with my little piggies

[Kmiec123]

I guess if I can get more than 10-20 to survive more than a day, I too can have that problem. There's always hope.