brine shrimp

[wuvmybetta]

I've been buying live brine for my eel for 5 months now, about 6 bags a week @ 2.50 a pop ,of course he doesn't eat ALL of that (he would if I let him,pig)the other fish and the bettas get some too but...sheeesh it's breaking me!

I keep them in a 2 gallon jar with an airstone, can they breed like that? I usually pour out the old water thru a brine net, dump the leftover brine back in and add the new brine and some fresh salt water....am I pouring baby brine down the sink when I do this? I've never seen babies but I see TONS of eggs all the time

I'm tired of buying it but I need to have it on hand, so how do I go about raising them myself?

 

[AquaNut]

Ack!! WuvMyBetta, stop throwing the eggs down the drain!! If you keep them in the salted water with an airstone, they'll hatch! If the water is heated, they'll hatch more quickly. I've never bought them live (only lfs in town doesn't sell any live food), but I often have a little hatchery on the go, and all you do is add eggs to salted, aerated water.

 

[wuvmybetta]

hmmm, I had a feeling I was doing something wrong )

so how can I heat them? They sit by the window and get sunlight daily but it will be cold soon so I'll need to find a new spot...any ideas?

 

[wuvmybetta]

oh one more question (probably to be followed by 10 more )

should I take the old egg filled water and put it in a seperate jar with an airstone?

oops,more questions....would it be ok if I put them somewhere cozy,like my laundry room for example? do they need light?

 

[AquaNut]

Well, if you have a steady supply, it probably won't much matter if they hatch in 2 days or 7 days, but if you wanted to keep it heated, you could buy a heater for them for the cost of one week's supply of live shrimp! Other than that, only other things I could suggest are a) keeping them very near a heat register or radiator, or B) floating their 2 gallon jar inside a large aquarium, ensuring that the lip of the jar is a couple of inches out of the tank water so that you don't have any salty cross contamination (not a very pretty ornament for a tank though). I turned my hospital tank into a betta tank , so I sometimes float a betta in a jar that way inside a community tank for a week or two, if I need to temporarily re-claim the hospital for quarantine or fry or something.

 

[AquaNut]

Grrr @ the flood control and double grr @ the way a b with a ) always turns into that little dude with shades.

They don't need light, and they'd be happy anywhere, I'm sure. lol I don't see why you'd need to put the eggs in a different jar. The only thing is, you probably don't want freshly hatched ones, and in order for them to get big, you have to feed them. I think you feed them yeast or algae, but I'm not 100% sure on that. They are most nutritious in the first few days after they hatch.

Oh! How about putting an incandescent light bulb above or beside the jar? edit - for heat, not light

 

[wuvmybetta]

I turned my hospital tank into a betta tank

hehehe

thanks for the info

how big should the jar be? (oh the questions just keep comin')
and.....what on earth do you feed them?
mine never last long enough to get hungry around here, but every now & then I drop a grain or two of yeast in there (active though ) and the water seems to get thick

 

[AquaNut]

The jar I use is a gallon, but I think you could use any size container at all.

 

[wuvmybetta]

, you answered my questions before I asked,smarty

I change the water because of the thickness that it takes on from the yeast, so in order to make room for clean water (plus the brine come in water so I just dump that in and a splash of salt water that I keep in a jug), that's when I notice all the eggs in the bowl of old water, so if I take those and put them alone they'll hatch huh? Seems simple enough, it oughta be...they're sea monkeys for crying out loud ..
AND I plan on having betta fry someday.... they'll enjoy the baby brine

the bulb is a fabulous idea, I can put one in my laundry room with the new jar , oh dear....the fish are taking over ANOTHER room in the house?!?!?!?!!!!, the laundry room was pretty much all I had left....

thanks again

 

[AquaNut]

@ the laundry room was all you had left. I surely can relate.

Apparently baby bettas LOVE freshly hatched brine shrimp.

Happy to help

 

[Alien Anna]

Brine shrimps will hatch in a jam-jar kept on the window-sill - they don't need any special care. Neglect actually works well with them. Just make sure you top up their water level every now and again.

 

[AllusiveLife]

Well they live in a fresh water tank? A 15 gallon Fresh water tank?

 

[ItchRinse]

hmm... interesting topic

mind if i poke in a question? (too bad... lol) i have some brine shrimp eggs from like 3 years ago that came with this crappy microscope kit and stuff and was wondering if they'd still hatch...? (they're in a little container and dry and shtuff, but they're *old* so...........) thx

 

[AquaNut]

Allusive Life - They'll only live in a fresh water tank for a couple of days, but won't hatch in one, to my knowledge. They're brine (salty water) shrimp...

ItchRinse - Apparently, brine shrimp eggs are good for years and years. All you have to lose by trying is a few tablespoons of salt and a couple of days' waiting.