Brine Shrimp Eggs

[Loko17]

Well I need some brine shrimp eggs for my killi fry that are going to hatch out in 10 or so days. My dad was at petsmart the other day and he said he saw some there. I'm wondering if it was really the eggs or if it was the freeze dried stuff. Anyone ever bought them or seen them there?

 

[afireinside]

Yup, they're they real eggs. I've boughten some from there before.

 

[Loko17]

What color package were they in?

 

[afireinside]

It came in a blue case, with three packages in it. The packages were purple. The name of it was Sally's Hatch Mix.

 

[Loko17]

Ok thanks, Do you remember the price?

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

I have those exact brine shrimp eggs and hachery from petco and had almost no success with them, but that could be my lack of experience and patience. I did get one batch out though and fed them to my molly fry. They went crazy over them and if I hadnt of lost interest in them, I would still be hatching out the shrimps.

Anyways, yea, it is true that you can get them and hatch them from a bag. apparently they go into suspended animation or something as eggs and can be stored for quite some time.

 

[Loko17]

Yea the reason you probably didnt have success with them is because sometimes you can get packs that arent over a year old and that means they havent aged enough or if they get moisture in there it will ruin the eggs.

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

That definately could be. I did get one good batch out of the package of three, so maybe moisture got to the top two or something. It was actually a cool 'experiment' to do with my son who loves science. He couldnt believe that something could be born out of a package like that.

So, when your fry get a little bigger, do you start to grow out the brine shrimp to add more nutrition or do you just stop feeding them? I have dealt with a lot of platty fry (too much to be honest) and I was thinking about setting up a tiny saltwater tank to grow some shrimp out in but I dont know how to do it exactly. I know an LFS that sells a 'nanocube' that is like 5 gallons or something so it might be a good way to dabble into the saltwater side of the hobby.

 

[Loko17]

I think you just feed it to them until they get big enough to eat bigger more nutritious foods like misquito larvae which are my killies main food source until winter, then I might have to switch to either all freezedried food or I might just feed them the baby brine shrimps because even though they are so small, fish's eyes are much smaller than ours so they can see stuff thats really small like infusoria which is an almost microscopic organism that some killi species have as their first food instead of brine shrimp since that type of killi hatches out so small. It would be pretty cool to get a nanocube to growout some brine shrimps even though I dont think its necessary but it would be a cool thing to experiment with.

 

[BigC]

Buying brineshrimp eggs from a LFS can be a costly business as the most always sell little vials at a premium. The most cost effective way is to buy 1lb cans.
http/www.brineshrimpdirect.com/store.cfm...272&m=0&do=list
The way we do it (like minded breeders) from over here is to order a carton (12 cans) keep what we need for ourselves, then sell off the surplus. That way we have obtained our cans for virtually nothing.
Regards
BigC
P.S. Cans over here (UK) retail for around £30-£40 at present.