hatching and feeding brine shrimp

[jimbooo]

Hi all,

i bought some brine shrimp eggs and set up a hatchery. simple question really, as you hatch them in sea water how do you then feed them to tropical fish

i'm not gonna pour salty water into my planted tank, not in a million years.

so what do i do (assuming i manage to hatch some in the first place)

hatchery is a 2ltr pop bottle with airstone, apparently that'll do fine??

 

[glolite]

Once the brineshrimp have hatched, normally between 1-2 days, pour them through a fine net, I use a filter bag as it's like fine cotton, then I have some tank water ready in 2 small containers (used and washed coleslaw pots or margerine tubs). Then I dip the bag of brineshrimp in one pot to rinse them and immediately turn bag inside-out dipping it into the other pot of tank water. You should see a fine pink mass in the bag at first, then once you've put them in the 2nd pot of water they look like tiny white specks floating around. Tip container into tank and watch fish enjoy!
Good luck.

 

[Dubby]

sieve them through a fine cloth. thats what I do.

 

[jimbooo]

great, thanks for that. to make the sea water mix is normal sea salt okay (used for cooking) i dont wanna spend money on aquarium salt just for live food

 

[BigC]

Hi again Jimbooo,
Below is an excerpt from my soon to be published website dedicated to Killifish.
Hatching Brineshrimp eggs for you killifish fry is very easy indeed. They are the best form of fry food bar none.
The first thing that you'll need are some Brineshrimp Eggs, these can be bought for around £30 for a 1lb sealed can from various sources.
There are many different contraptions floating around to hatch brineshrimp in, but all I use is a 1ltr lemonade bottle with the neck cut off, I fill this to about 2/3 full of tap water and add one tablespoon of Cooking Salt (not Table Salt). This needs to be held at a temperature of around 75 - 80 degrees Fahrenheit and a pH of around 8.0 (If your tap water is below 7.5 then add a very tiny amount of Bicarbonate of Soda to the mix). 5ml of brineshrimp eggs are then added to the saline mix and an air stone is inserted to keep the eggs in suspension. A light source needs to be left on 24/7 to activate the hatching mechanism, I use an 11w energy saver type which gives of the equivalent light of a 60w normal bulb. If all the above criteria are adhered to then the eggs should hatch in 24 - 36 hours. To feed the nauplii I suck up enough for one feed using a glass eyedropper and strain this through a cotton handkerchief over a jam-jar. I flush the brineshrimp with fresh water, again via an eyedropper to remove some of the saline solution. Then I dip the handkerchief into the fry tank.
I hope this was of some help to you.
Regards
BigC

 

[Tolak]

My setup is the pretty much same as BigC has, except I use a 2 liter bottle. To strain I put a paper coffee filter over a cup, attach it to the rim with a rubber band, & pull the bbs out with a turkey baster. A good rinse with dechlored water, & eyedropper them in to the fry tanks.

Tolak

 

[jimbooo]

awesome, free food coming up..

thanks for that guys shouldn't be too hard.