Hatching Brine Shrimp

[xptweakerntn]

Last night/today was my first attempt at hatching brine shrimp. Very crude to begin with (a jar with some air bubbles with salt), I don't think it worked all that well. Tonight I've stepped it up, and now am using a used syrup bottle. The hole in the lid is the exact size of the air tube, so I'll hatch them in that, then can use the bottle to direct the flow into my brine shrimp net, filtering out the water. I'm planning on getting a brine shrimp hatchery kit thing, but I'll have to find one that I like first. So my questions:

Tonight, for certain, I fed my fish some hatched brine shrimp IN COMBINATION with unhatched. Will the eggs harm my fish in any way? In other words, in the future shall I make it a huge priority to only feed live brine shrimp to them?

After hatching and turning off the air, do the shrimp go to the top or bottom? I've both that the eggs sink to the bottom (the hatched egg things), and the eggs (hatched things) float to the top. I'm not sure which one, but I personally believe that the hatched eggs go to the top.

If anyone has any advanced methods/tutorials or anything of use, please feel free to share.

 

[Tolak]

I can tell you the procedure I follow every night with my hatchery, and what some other folks do as well.

I'm cheap, I use a 2 liter bottle for hatching in, and built a box with a dimmer to contain the light, and heat. The dimmer adjusts the temperature, you can see the setup here; http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=136880&hl=

You can just as easily use a desk lamp, or other lamp in an enclosed area to keep the temperature at 80F. I imagine a deep drawer from a discarded dressed would work good, a cardboard box would probably be a bad idea due to being more flammable. I've seen people run hatcheries with a 2-liter bottle, and a gooseneck desk lamp on the corner of a table. Anything that provides light 24/7, and a constant temperature of 80F will do.

I used to run my hatchery off of a small air pump; it's hooked into my centralized system now. You do want plenty of aeration; this keeps the artemia cysts suspended in the brine solution.

You can see from the pics in the link how much water I fill with, about 1 1/2 liters. I don't add any dechlorinator, just cold tap water. I add 2 tablespoons of non-iodized salt; I've been using livestock salt, $3 for a 50-pound bag. I told you I was cheap. I also add about 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda, and since doing a little experimenting, 3 drops of chlorine bleach. I've seen breeders add a drop or two of acriflavin instead of bleach; the idea behind either of these is to keep bacteria levels down. The baking soda increases hardness; some folks will use Epsom salt instead.

So, after adding salt, baking soda, bleach and eggs I give the hatchery a good stir, and ignore it until the next night. The next night I pull the hose out of the hatchery, put the hatchery on the table, and shine a bright light on the bottom, this makes the bbs settle to the bottom. I then get what is left from the previous evening hatch out of the fridge, and get my bbs cup, which is nothing more than a large deep plastic cup with a paper coffee filter rubber banded to the top. I take my turkey baster (every aquarist should have a turkey baster) and take the previous hatch out of the old sour cream container I use to store bbs. I have a 1" square hole cut in the top; this lets a little fresh air in during storage. The stored bbs goes into the filter/cup gizmo, and drains while the hatchery is settling. After about 3 minutes I pour a little fresh water into the filter to rinse. A few minutes later I take the baster, and add some of the fresh bbs from the hatchery to the now empty & rinsed out sour cream container. To get past the shells floating at the top, without mixing them in, rub your nose a couple of times with you finger. Touch the surface of the bbs hatchery. Oil from your skin reduces surface tension, and the shells all go to the edge.

Now I add a little more water to the filter, and walk around feeding the older bbs to older fry. Once this is done, I take some of the freshly hatched bbs, and add them to the filter. I go through the same rinsing procedure before feeding these to younger fry. The sour cream container goes in the fridge, the hatchery, hose, and top go to the utility sink for a good rinse and refill, and it starts over again.

This procedure takes about 10 minutes; I try to multitask through it. Many people will get two batches going, one in the morning, and one in the evening. I hate mornings, and don't need this extra 10 minutes of work when I could be sucking down coffee; one batch daily being refrigerated has worked fine for years.

 

[xptweakerntn]

Alright...sounds good....but once again...will it hurt my fish, or be a harm, if my fish eat some eggs as well?

 

[Tolak]

I am sure with most all hatching setups some shells get in, along with unhatched eggs. My computer is acting up, go to angelsplus.com, scroll to the articles link, there is an article on bbs shells and their effect on angel fry.

I'd post a link, but I have no right mouse button, this poor thing is quickly dying. Time to build a new one, it's 5 years of constant running on this machine.