THE SEVENTH DAY - ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET

I have been running brine shrimp culture for a couple of days now, starting a new batch every morning. I feed the fry a couple of times a day and since the baby brine shrimp is a live culture, the fry can eat all they want and can, and the food is always there. Brine shrimp will stay alive in fresh water for up to five hours.

Baby brine shrimp nutritional analysis (according to San Francisco Bay Brand, Inc.) - crude protein - min 55%, crude fat - min 18.3%, crude fiber - max 19%, beta carotene (hence the orange color), lipids, essential unsaturated fatty acids.

In addition, I started to add some algae from the walls of the main pond. The suspension of live brine shrimp, green algae and diatoms should give enough nutrition for rapidly developing ranchu.

Brine shrimp (Artemia salina): left - immature stage (nauplii), right - 24 hr old
Photo from Virginia Cooperative Extension website   

Ranchu fry bellies filled with orange brine shrimp nauplii

Not so pretty algae film on the pond's wall, but oh so tasty!