I have Axolotl eggs advice needed please

[shiuh]

hi Phill,

im still waiting for my BBS egg tin. has the shipment arrived yet? my eggs are starting to run low and thing are not looking so good for my fish..

[mrshanepaul]

baby axoies are so cute.

Variety is the spice of life, so mixing and matching will definitely help more than trying to find a silver bullet. (I have never found anyone saying otherwise)

The above argument was rather annoying to read, because it is clear that both parties are fish experts trying to argue nutrition - a subject I know something about:

When you talk about how nutritious foods are, you refer to the % calorific content, not the raw weight.

In modern labelling this is not the case, leading to all sorts of misnomers. They are not hard to work out if you know, but most people can't be bothered. (note- these companies do this ON PURPOSE)

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e.g. FAT content

Ripples chips:

http://www.eta.co.nz/Eta/products/NutritionalInfo.aspx?id=266

Potato chips (see link if in doubt) usually weigh in at 35g of fat per 100g. One might conclude that chips were therefor 35% fat and that this was bad enough. This correct from a mass point of view, but completely misleading.

Fat has roughly TWICE the calories per gram of either protein OR carbs.

Total % of calories from fat is actually: 51% (35*2/(65+70) * 100)

Add in the fact that the rest of the chip is 6grams protein and 55grms carbs, this is NOT a healthy meal.

Actual calorific content:

Fat: 51%

carbs: 40%

protein: 4.5%

Since a well balanced diet is mainly trying to maintain a healthy carb/fat/protein ratio, these foods are FAR WORSE than they may first appear, and they appear pretty bad.

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More relevant to daphnia: eg: Soft dink

Coke has 10 grams of sugar pr 100mls (=100grams) and almost nothing else of consequence but water. By weight you would assume that coke is 10 percent sugar.

Of course this calculation is easy by calorific content:

Fat: 0%

Protein: 0%

carbs: 100%

The water is obvious not important since it is not really part of our FOOD intake. (obviously it is vital, but we are assuming you are drinking water)

=========================

So how does this relate to daphnia??

Well if daphnia is 98% water, we can likewise ignore this content. What we really want is its calorific content and how this relates to others measured the same way. ("dry weight" is usually quoted for this reason, but with daphnia and shrimp, they contain significant %'s of ash )

Protein content by dry weight is 20-25% in adults and over 50% in juveniles.

Daphnia (wet weight):

Protein: 4% (or grams/100grams)

fat: 0.54%

Carbs: 0.67%

Thus the nutritional makup by calorific content is:

fat: 18.5%

carbs: 11.5%

protein: 70%

Brine Shrimp:

From: http://www.artemiaworld.com/

Wet weight:

Protein: 65% (or grams/100grams wet)

Fat: 6.8%

Carbohydrate: 25.0%

Ash: 4.4%

Moisture: 8.0%

Calorific breakdown:

Fat: 13.1%

carb: 24.1%

protein: 62.7%

Not much difference at the macro level really.

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This all has to be taken with a grain of salt of course. There are many more factors to nutrition than just fat/carbs/protein. What types of fats are important as well as vitimins and so forth.

Since I doubt anyone here has a "reccommended daily intake" of vitimins for any of their fish, let alone for these critters, this is probably not something you can investigate.

Common wisdom for fish will most likely not apply to a meat eating salamander anyways!? (they love red meat apparently, fish cannot handle the saturated fats)

Again, this is WHY variety is important!

Further, Daphnia have other physical advantages. They are fresh water and can live in a fresh tank until eaten, unlike brineys. Less chance of parasites and bacterial infections. (I believe - I am not an expert) Easier to grow. Cheaper...

Even if brine shrimp turn out to be a little better, are they really worth the increased expense? Will it actually make that much of a difference?

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lol. And as i am writing this, we just got given free left over pizza - it is one thing to know the nutritional value, it is another to resist the cheesy goodness....

[HummingBird]

Man, Shae's really going to rip you out for saying that.

I agree though.

[mrshanepaul]

Man, Shae's really going to rip you out for saying that.

I agree though.

Bring it on. I love a good debate.

Better not forget your facts either...

[alanmin4304]

artemia nuplii have a high food value because they are still feeding on an egg sack. When that has been used up the food value is probaly similar, except that daphnia (from the wild) probably has a higher plant content because of what they are feeding on.

[livebearer_breeder]

Whoa, how did I miss this?

I’m assuming that the above Results are of Adult Brine Shrimp, I must assume this considering that the URL you gave does not work.

I am talking about BBS, not ABS.

There are a lot of advantages to BBS, Firstly, BBS can be fed in the thousands, depending on hatcheries; you can have hatches happening every hour. They have such a high protein content, that young fish explode with growth. Unlike Daphnia who are often far too big to be eaten by small fry. Although the physical size difference appeals to different sized fish. I am simply referring to young fish as BBS being an complete advantage VS Daphnia, although I can still condition adult fish on BBS.

Less chance of parasites and bacterial infections

Biggest Load of Bull iv'e heard in a long time! Think about that for a second, Daphnia can come from muddy puddles, they can be in insecticide/chemically contaminated water, no matter how concentrated or dilute it may be, they consume a lot of other resources, of which can be unknown, they are wild, which simply means, that if anything, Daphnia prove a lot more dangerous to Aquarium fish that Aquarist Brine Shrimp ever would. Consider this for a moment, BS is hatched by the Aquarist, in my case, freshwater that has had salt added. It is Hatches in 24 hours, then strained, and placed in fresh tank water, from my fish tanks, it is then drip fed to various tanks around my fishroom. My tanks are all very healthy, so the chance that they have been exposed to parasites or other foreign or dangerous bacteria’s to fish has nearly impossible chances Vs Wild Daphnia.

Shae

[MRSkz]

http://www.artemiaworld.com/ does actualy work just not with the--->> tag attached to it

and that's all I'm saying on this subject.

[Caryl]

Why are you talking about wild daphnia? Most of us will culture our daphnia like those who culture their brine shrimps. I do not know of any fish keeper who would gather their daphnia from a muddy puddle!

Both daphnia and brine shrimp are good for young fry to eat so forget calorie, fat and whatever content. It is VARIETY which is as important. Give them both and your babies will grow quickly and well.

By the way, I am not sure I would refer to anyone on this site as an "expert". We are all hobbyists, some with more knowledge in some areas than others, trying to help fellow hobbyists.

[HummingBird]

Yeah, I got all my daphnia from one anscestor that I treated with methaline blue and other stuff to kill anything.

[mrshanepaul]

Both daphnia and brine shrimp are good for young fry to eat so forget calorie, fat and whatever content. It is VARIETY which is as important. Give them both and your babies will grow quickly and well.

I agree! I said this at the start and end of my post.

By the way, I am not sure I would refer to anyone on this site as an "expert". We are all hobbyists, some with more knowledge in some areas than others, trying to help fellow hobbyists.

Compared to me, you are experts. Expertise is relative after all...

I'm assuming that the above Results are of Adult Brine Shrimp, I must assume this considering that the URL you gave does not work.

I am talking about BBS, not ABS.

You assume wrong, sir!

I actually quote the protein content for adults AND juveniles and use the juvenile stats.

There are a lot of advantages to BBS, Firstly, BBS can be fed in the thousands, depending on hatcheries; ....

I was mainly talking from a nutritional point of view. I assume that the my "final words" where I mention physical advantages of one over the other that people (e.g. shae) thought I was talking from experience and saying I liked one over the other. (I was not) This was just an example of the practical realities of a food source.

It is all very well to say one has 25% better protein content than the other, but if it costs $100/kg and must be harvested from the alps on a full moon, it is not much use.

This is NOT a subjective area, since YOU know what you have spent in time/energy/money when you bred them and what is best for you.

My main point, which I spent most of my time on, was that the nutritional reasoning that was going on was not correct.

My main conclusion was that they appear to be very similar and that variety is very important.

[mrshanepaul]

PS:

Just got two 6 month old golden axies today. VERY happy about that, been waiting for ages for them.