Breeding Food?

[Masterofstuff124]

So my plan is to buy
Palaemonetes Vulgaris
and
Assorted saltwater Feeder Fish
and
nannochloropsis
and
Marine Rotifers

all in the hopes that they will breed and be a steady source of food for my reefs and Cuttles(Sepia Bandensis)
I will be purchasing all this from Livebrineshrimp.com yes they are still in business I just spoke to them the other day.

my hope is these will breed.

Mixed reports of vulgaris shrimp breeding in tanks.(30G)
no idea what assorted saltwater feeders are but hopefully they will work out.(20G)
Nanno is commonly cultured so np there. (2L)
Marine Rotifers will be fed Nanno seems they also breed NP. just need to be careful about cross contamination between the nanno and rotifers.(2.5G?)

My hope is that this variety of food will be appropriate for raising from egg my cuttlefish.

I also have Brine shrimp eggs in my freezer.

 

[Masterofstuff124]

seems like some success with breeding peppermint shrimp.

Ghost shrimp are readily available around me but usually freshwater? I worry they wouldn't be a good food source. But Ghost shrimp readily breed in aquarium.

 

[Masterofstuff124]

no to ghost shrimp

Freshwater Ghost Shrimp as food?

 

[DWhatley]

@Thales has mentioned that freshwater ghost shrimp can be used for everyday food once the cuttles are large enough. The only consistent successful new hatchling food we have recorded are mysis shrimp.

 

[M.wilson271]

While digging around on this subject, I encountered some research suggesting copepods could be an alternative.

Unfortunately I can't find the article, but the success rates were roughly 96 percent success with mysis and 83 percent success with copepods.

If I manage to find the paper again, I will link it here.

 

[M.wilson271]

Found that article - having a hard time linking to it.
Google search for the title should put it near the top.
THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE AND ARTIFICIAL DIETS TO CULTURE JUVENILE CUTTLEFISH ...

From the article:
Survival was higher (96.7±5.8%) for hatchlings fed mysids, compared to 83.3±15.3% and 76.7±5.8, for those fed gammarids and caprellids, respectively. According to the results obtained, gammarids could be used as an alternative prey to mysids, while Caprella equilibra did not deliver appropriate growth rates and should be disregarded as alternative prey for rearing early stages

 

[DWhatley]

Generally speaking amphipods seem too small and copepods too large. Looking up gammarids, they are the largest of the amphipods so may approximate mysid size. My concern being that these are two specific amphipod cultures of amphipod (not copepod) with different results.

Also note that the cuttlefish in the study were the much larger Sepia officinalis

Here is a link to a PDF with a slightly different title but clearly from the same study
Use of Amphipods as alternative prey to culture cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) hatchlings