Hi, I've decided to buy some brine shrimp eggs for feeding my fry as i've heard it will make them grow better.
It seems the people at my lfs sold me the wrong thing because they just gave me the eggs in solution and i asked for the kit (Salt etc).
Can anyone help with how i can hatch these and when to feed my fry with them and any other helpful info would be great!
Yes, baby brine shrimp are a great first (or second, after infusoria, depending on what fry you're talking about) food for fry.
And no, the LFS didn't really sell you the "wrong thing". I'm guessing by "eggs in solution", you are referring to something like Artemia Revolution (not sure if there are other brands out there), which is decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (basically they've taken the "shells" off the cysts so that it has a higher hatch rate (according to the manufacturer
). Also, you can feed that solution to your fry straight from the bottle (preferably strained through a very fine brine shrimp net so that you get rid of the excess salt, unless you're feeding livebearers; in which case the salt is OK. Remember, if you do it this way (feeding non-hatched cysts/eggs), there are a LOT of eggs in each DROP! So don't over-do it as this will just go to waste and add to the waste level in the aquarium.
If you want to hatch out the eggs (preferable), you don't NEED a "kit". All you need is salt (non-iodised!! like rock salt or sea salt) that you can buy at the grocery store. There are plenty of DIY brine shrimp hatcher plans out there on the net; all else you need is a soft drink bottle, an airline with airpump, don't use airstone. Heat and light also helps (eg. a desk lamp). Look it up on Google. The kits (IMO) are a waste of money.
When to feed your fry would depend on what kind of fry you have! Betta fry are much tinier than guppy fry when they are "born", for example. Also with hatched fry they have an egg sac which should feed them for a couple of days after hatching. Then they need infusoria, then BBS. Or you can get liquid fry food. Or you can make your own by mashing up boiled egg yolk. But BBS are extremely nutritious.
Good luck with your research. Search for pinned articles on this forum.
About 25% is what I do; for my fry tank (LOTS of fry, can't count them), I do this water change at least once every two days. Takes minutes. Saves lives.
