Variations in size of Artemia sp. napuli

[SludgeMunkey]

I had a group of Lissotriton vulgaris ampelensis hatch today. They are the tiniest larvae I have worked with yet.

While I have some nice cultures of various tiny live foods going, My brine shrimp napuli look to be a bit too large as an early food for this species. Upon further research I found that there is a bit of difference in size between species. The species I use are from the great Salt Lake in Utah. It is my understanding these are larger than the San Francisco Bay species. This was news to me!

Is this truth or am I misunderstanding the information I found?
Any insight would be much appreciated!

 

[oceanblue]

You have got it right, different strains are different sizes and also have slightly different temperature tolerances. You may find the San Francisco strain bettter if you want a small food. The FAO has a document which includes all you need to know about brine shrimp and more besides!
4.1. Introduction, biology and ecology of Artemia

There is a picture of the size difference of two strains in section 4.3 of the same document.

 

[trailsofslime]

Yes this is true. The SF strain of nauplii is smaller - SF is 434 microns and GSL is 472 microns. The SF strain is heavily used in cancer research for raising Zebra Danios (a small fish that produce small fry), because of its small size. It is also preferred by many angel fish breeders as the starter food and after about 2 weeks they switch to the larger GSL variety. I personally use the SF variety for raising larvae. Comparable in size to the SF strain is the Vietnam strain often available through aquaculture companies, the main difference is the SF strain is that it is shelf stable and the Vietnam variety must be refrigerated to last otherwise they go bad fast.

 

[simon]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that you can effect the size by altering the salinity as well. I can't remember if it is more salt --> larger Artemia or the other way around.