Brine Shrimp Hatchery

[Rorie]

I'm looking for advice on how to work this thing!!

I got a cheap purpose made hatchery which comes with eggs and salt. Can i put this in the aquarium where the fish are? Will the salt water not pollute the aquarium water?

I have seen some at £30 which say the shrimp find their way into the aquarium on their own. Sounds good, but is it good? Any advice on this? The eggs that hatch are minute in size! How do i know if they have hatched?

Thanks

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have a couple of the brine shrimp hatch and feeders. They go inside a tank, require an air pump and while they do work as advertised, The volume of bbs they produce is not great. I got the two to try and feed some newly free swimming angel fry when I had to go away for the weekend. Two feeders were insufficient for feeding a few 100 fry.

They work with the salt water in one part for the eggs/bbs and fw in the rest because of the difference between the specific gravity of sw vs fw. The hatheries are a gray tinted color and the light that attracts the bbs come in via the same route the shrimp swim out into the tank.

So they do work but only for a limited number of fry.

 

[Rorie]

Yeh, thats the one i saw. Pretty expensive! Is it any good other than the price and the limited capabilities you mentioned?

I see a lot of people make their own out of coke bottles etc, but i guess they require you to get put the brine shrimp in yourself?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Yes- with those one once you set it up it will hatch them and then they will swim out into the tank. All you have to do is add more eggs to keep a continuous supply. You also will need to clean it out and restart it every so often as the shells eventually build up and the sw may need refreshing.

Here in the states they sell for more like $20 which at current exchange rates is just over £12. I have two which have been on my shelf for about 6 years now. I think I paid about $10-$12 each.

If I need any serious amount of bbs I will hatch them out myself. All it takes is a jug of some sort, eggs, salt, an air pump and airstone.

 

[Tolak]

Hey TTA, you ever try adding anything else to the mix? I add baking soda to increase hardness, and a couple drops of bleach per liter to keep things clean & soften shells. I gave up on air stones, the salt seems to tear them up, I have a stainless steel nut to weigh down the air line.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I got to the point between multiple planted community tanks and multiple breeding and growout tanks, that I became unwilling to take on one more task. So I drew the line at live. I have only ever done two live food, bbs and red worms. I had to do bbs for angel fry and for new cardinal tetras. When I did, I simply used a couple of one gallon mason jars and air on a cheap stone. I used only kosher salt and the air. Never tried the baking soda etc. Did not use a heater either.

To harvest I would kill the air and cover the top- 10 mins later the shells were up and shrimp were down and I would use a cone made from a coffee filter and suck out the shrimp with a turkey baster and squeeze them into the filter. Then a fast rinse and into a cup of water and from there into tanks. I hated how the salt water would "sprit" out the tops of the jars and nasty up anything it hit with salt crud.

It has been a few years since I hatched bbs. I now buy the Hikari frozen bbs. Even better is frozen Cycop-eeze but that is pricey at $47 for 750 grams.