Can larvae eat marine copepods?

[bugdozer]

Having had a bit of a brine shrimp hatch problem, I got hold of some marine copepods in a bag. Are these suitable to feed to the tadpoles? Presumably, like the brine shrimp, they can survive a short time in fresh water while the larvae eat them, but I didn't know if they were safe to give them. I have also been feeding some daphnia but am running low on the little ones they can manage to eat.

 

[auntiejude]

If you rinse them well as you would BBS they should be fine. But to prevent the BBS problem it's a good idea to run 2 hatcheries in tandem - strat one today, another tomorrow, harvest the first the day after tomorrow and start a new batch etc.

I have exactly the same problem - they eat more daphnia that I can culture myself!

 

[bugdozer]

Thanks for the answer. I am running two hatcheries in tandem - the shrimps died unexpectedly in one for reasons I'm not sure about, which was then followed by a poor number hatching in the other batch.

 

[Azhael]

As an excepcion it´s alright, but it wouldn´t make an optimal choice as a staple. You´d do well to focuss on culturing the Daphnia in larger numbers, they are very good.

 

[auntiejude]

Brineshrimp are fickle things to hatch - I now use decapsulated eggs as they are much more reliable. I can hatch a batch in 24 hours with those.

 

[bugdozer]

As an excepcion it´s alright, but it wouldn´t make an optimal choice as a staple. You´d do well to focuss on culturing the Daphnia in larger numbers, they are very good.

I did have a Daphnia culture going too. They were eating them faster than I could grow them and the population declined too much I do have quite a lot of tadpoles...