• Single ingredient: Artemia - the whole declaration is one word, which is unusual in prepared aquarium food.
• Flash-frozen whole - the animal keeps its form and its internal contents, rather than leaching them during a slow freeze.
• 1 cm animal size - small enough for most community fish to take in one piece and large enough to trigger a feeding response.
• Naturally rich in omega-3 and omega-6 - the fatty acid profile is why brine shrimp remains a conditioning food for breeders.
• Bulk flat pack - 454 g, the format for a stocked display or several tanks rather than a single betta.
• Freshwater and marine - one food across a mixed fishroom.
• Nearly universally accepted - useful for starting new arrivals and for tempting fish off live food.

Full ingredient declaration

Reproduced exactly as Ocean Nutrition publishes it: Artemia.

The declaration contains crustacean. There are no added colours, preservatives, ethoxyquin, BHA or BHT.

Analytical constituents

Ocean Nutrition does not publish a crude fibre figure for plain Artemia, so none is shown here rather than estimated.

The honest reading of that table: at 89.5% water, adult brine shrimp is a low-density food. It is excellent at getting fish to eat and poor at putting weight on them. Rotate it with mysis, krill or a prepared formula rather than feeding it alone.

Buy the plain Artemia if you already run a varied diet and want a clean, single-ingredient staple you can enrich yourself. See Frozen Artemia Brine Shrimp with Spirulina & Garlic 454g if the problem you are solving is a fish that will not start eating.

A flat pack is a solid slab rather than pre-divided cubes. Break off what you need against the edge of a bench, or chip a portion away with a knife on a board while the slab is still hard.

Return the remainder to the freezer straight away. A flat that softens and refreezes repeatedly turns into one welded block, which is a practical annoyance rather than a safety issue.

Let the portion defrost without water at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes, then feed. Ocean Nutrition's direction is two to five feeds a day, offering only what the fish will finish within five minutes.

Straining the thawed portion through a fine net and discarding the liquid is common practice in reef and planted tanks, and keeps dissolved nutrients out of the water column. Never refreeze a thawed portion.

Suitable for

• Community tropical fish, tetras, rasboras, barbs, danios and livebearers
• Marine community fish, clownfish, chromis, gobies and wrasses
• Fry and juvenile fish large enough to take a 1 cm animal or a broken piece
• Shrimp, crabs and other invertebrates that scavenge from the substrate
• Conditioning breeding pairs, where frequent small high-acceptance feeds matter

Not suitable for

• Use as a sole diet - the 89.5% moisture and 0.9% fat figures make it a poor standalone staple
• Very small fry that cannot handle a 1 cm animal, which need a smaller frozen or liquid food
• Strict herbivores such as tangs, which need algae-based food instead
• Households without freezer space near the tank, since the slab must stay frozen between feeds

• Frozen Mysis Flat 454g - a denser frozen food to alternate with brine shrimp for actual growth.
• Frozen BloodWorm Flat 454g - another bulk flat, and a strong trigger for freshwater fish.
• Frozen Daphnia 100g - a smaller particle size for the fish that find 1 cm artemia too big.
• Frozen Rotifers 100g - for fry and filter feeders below the size artemia suits.
• Frozen Krill Pacifica Flat 454g - a larger, higher-value prey item for bigger fish.

Aquarium foods carry no manufacturer warranty period. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law apply in full and sit in addition to anything a manufacturer offers, including a remedy where frozen stock is not of acceptable quality on arrival.

This is a frozen product and must stay frozen until it is fed, so it is handled as a cold-chain item rather than a standard ambient parcel. Frozen stock cannot travel by ordinary parcel post; check the delivery options available for frozen goods at checkout before ordering.

Is frozen brine shrimp a complete diet on its own?

No. Ocean Nutrition Frozen Artemia analyses at 6.3% protein and 0.9% fat against 89.5% moisture, which makes it a high-acceptance food rather than a high-nutrition one. Use it two or three times a week alongside mysis, krill or a prepared formula rather than as the only food in the tank.

How do I get a portion off a 454 g flat pack?

Break or chip the piece you need while the slab is still frozen hard, on a board, then put the rest straight back in the freezer. Letting the whole flat soften to portion it is the fastest way to end up with a single fused block.

Will brine shrimp cloud the water?

The food itself does not cloud water, but the liquid frozen with it adds dissolved nutrients, and uneaten shrimp will foul a tank as any food does. Straining the thawed portion through a fine net before feeding is the standard way to avoid both.

Can this be fed to corals and invertebrates?

Ocean Nutrition lists Frozen Artemia as suitable for invertebrates, and shrimp, crabs and larger-polyp corals will take whole or chopped animals readily. Smaller-polyp corals and filter feeders need a finer particle than a 1 cm brine shrimp.

What is the difference between the 454 g flat and the 100 g blister?

The food is identical. The blister is pre-divided into cubes for convenience and small feeds, while the 454 g flat is a solid slab you portion yourself and is aimed at multiple tanks or a heavily stocked display.

Can a thawed portion go back in the freezer?

No. Once brine shrimp has thawed it should be fed or discarded. Refreezing degrades the animals and risks spoiling the portion, and there is no way to tell by eye that it has happened.