Ok Ok... *instant* Baby Brine Shrimp?
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KrazyKuhli
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Looks really good and handy if it does work =D
CezzaXV
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My LFS has started stocking this recently.
It may be a good product, but that video doesn't have me convinced. I would have liked to have seen some close ups of the actual baby brine shrimp he made in that video. All we got to see was him squirting some orange gunk into a jug, no evidence that it was actually working.
It may be a good product, but that video doesn't have me convinced. I would have liked to have seen some close ups of the actual baby brine shrimp he made in that video. All we got to see was him squirting some orange gunk into a jug, no evidence that it was actually working.
It looks to me like they are selling BBS that have been hatched out at their "factory" and then placed in a sealed container. Do not expect the product to give you live BBS for your fry. Instead treat it much the same way as you would frozen brine shrimp. It will be a decent enough food but will not induce the feeding response that live BBS would. Many fry of various fish are fed BBS because it causes the newborn or newly hatched fry to feed when they see the BBS moving. Fry are not too intelligent but instead respond to motion cues which will not be present in this product. Once the fry in a tank are feeding well, this stuff should work just fine.
thereverendturtle
I'm to old for this
+1 might as well use frozen bbs or cyclops.
I just had an email exchange with a guy over at plantedtanks and according to him he raised 2 batches of fry on this with plenty to spare? Sterile brine shrimp/eggs in abundance is not so easily sourced and when you look at the price difference it would seem an easy choice.
@oldman47 As for the needing movement to see it as food thing I'm going to both agree and disagree. For me personally I'd be using this for AP fry and they forage and will happily except non moving bbs which I have fed before.
[font="Verdana][quote]Just another decap product, rather overpriced from what I'm seeing. Decapsulated brine shrimp will work well with some species of fry, not so well with others, especially the first week or so. [/quote][/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Exactly.... Please read my article below and save yourself some money in the process...pound for pound[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]
[/font][/color]
[font="arial][size="2"]De-capsulating Brineshrimp Eggs
A step by step pictorial
The problem with hatching brineshrimp eggs using conventional methods means that once hatched you are left with literally millions of unwanted shell casings, these inadvertently get fed along with the newly hatched shrimp to your fry and corals, they are in fact quite sharp and can kill fry. So what can we do to keep fry losses to a minimum whilst separating those unwanted egg casings?
We can dissolve the outer shell of the Brineshrimp cyst by a process known as De-Capsulation.
If you examine a Brineshrimp cyst under a strong lens or microscope you will see that it has the look of a deflated ball, lots of little dimples and a large indentation.
Before we begin the de-capsulation process we will need to make the outer shell spherical. Before we can start the process the outer shell must be fully hydrated. We do this by hydrating the amount of eggs you wish to de-capsulate in a water solution.
Here is a picture of Brineshrimp Cysts before actual Hydration, I have seperated a little group to illustrate the concave shape of most of the eggs before immersing in water.
This picture shows the dramatic difference in the shape of the cyst after they have been immersed in water for 90 mins
The items we will be using are
Household Bleach (non Fragranced)
White Vinegar
2x Small beakers with lids
Cotton Handkerchiefs or Brineshrimp sieve
Brineshrimp eggs/cysts
Airpump & Airline
Brineshrimp hatchery.
As I only de-capsulate the amount of eggs I need for any one feeding, I will show you my methods and you can scale these up or down as need be to suit your own situation.
Take a small plastic beaker (mine holds around 250ml) and fill this to about a third of its volume with normal tap water, add to this one level teaspoon of Brineshrimp Eggs and replace the cap on the beaker. Shake the mixture vigorously and keep shaking this solution periodically over the course of 90 minutes or so to fully hydrate the eggs.
Eggs Settled
Eggs in Suspension (keep shaking the jar periodically)
Once you've done that remove the cap and add household bleach until the container is around three quarters full. Replace the cap and shake once and let the eggs settle for a few moments then shake the jar to really mix the bleach and the eggs in the solution.
Notice the reaction starting to take place (foaming at the top of the liquid)
Within a few minutes you should notice a reaction taking place, the colour of the cyst should change from brown to grey to white to orange depending on the strength of the chemicals and the thickness of the shell.
Start of the reaction process
It's working
Almost finished!
When you notice that most of the cysts are orange in colour (90%) STOP! The process immediately by pouring the solution into a cotton hankie draped over another jar. Now, pour a small amount of white vinegar over de-capsulated eggs and once you've done this rinse the eggs under the tap to rid them of the entire bleach and vinegar residue.
Rinse with White Vinegar and with plenty of tap water
Finished Product - The Amber Nectar.
Once you have your de-capsulated eggs you can hatch them in the normal way, only this time you will have none of the annoying egg casings to contend with.
Ready for hatching using the normal conventional method.
This may seem a awful lot of trouble to go to in order to feed your fry or corals. Believe me it is well worth the effort, as you will attain a visually higher hatch rate along with clean no mess feeding.
Why don't you try it some time, see for yourself.
Larger amounts of eggs can be used along with large amounts of chemical agents for aquarists who need higher volume hatches to feed their fry. De-capsulated Brineshrimp can also be stored in a heavy brine solution (which effectively dehydrates the membrane thus allowing the aquarist to store the eggs for up to a month in the fridge. Of course you dont even have to hatch the nauplii you can feed the unhatched shrimp in the membrane, some say its better nutritionally for the fry. I'll leave you to decide.....
I hope this article was of some help to those aquarists who are fed up with hatching Brineshrimp and the constant battle of trying to separate shrimp from shell.
Regards
BigC[/size][/font]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]Exactly.... Please read my article below and save yourself some money in the process...pound for pound[/font][/color]
[color="#222222"][font="Verdana]
[/font][/color]
[font="arial][size="2"]De-capsulating Brineshrimp Eggs
A step by step pictorial
The problem with hatching brineshrimp eggs using conventional methods means that once hatched you are left with literally millions of unwanted shell casings, these inadvertently get fed along with the newly hatched shrimp to your fry and corals, they are in fact quite sharp and can kill fry. So what can we do to keep fry losses to a minimum whilst separating those unwanted egg casings?
We can dissolve the outer shell of the Brineshrimp cyst by a process known as De-Capsulation.
If you examine a Brineshrimp cyst under a strong lens or microscope you will see that it has the look of a deflated ball, lots of little dimples and a large indentation.
Before we begin the de-capsulation process we will need to make the outer shell spherical. Before we can start the process the outer shell must be fully hydrated. We do this by hydrating the amount of eggs you wish to de-capsulate in a water solution.
Here is a picture of Brineshrimp Cysts before actual Hydration, I have seperated a little group to illustrate the concave shape of most of the eggs before immersing in water.
This picture shows the dramatic difference in the shape of the cyst after they have been immersed in water for 90 mins
The items we will be using are
Household Bleach (non Fragranced)
White Vinegar
2x Small beakers with lids
Cotton Handkerchiefs or Brineshrimp sieve
Brineshrimp eggs/cysts
Airpump & Airline
Brineshrimp hatchery.
As I only de-capsulate the amount of eggs I need for any one feeding, I will show you my methods and you can scale these up or down as need be to suit your own situation.
Take a small plastic beaker (mine holds around 250ml) and fill this to about a third of its volume with normal tap water, add to this one level teaspoon of Brineshrimp Eggs and replace the cap on the beaker. Shake the mixture vigorously and keep shaking this solution periodically over the course of 90 minutes or so to fully hydrate the eggs.
Eggs Settled
Eggs in Suspension (keep shaking the jar periodically)
Once you've done that remove the cap and add household bleach until the container is around three quarters full. Replace the cap and shake once and let the eggs settle for a few moments then shake the jar to really mix the bleach and the eggs in the solution.
Notice the reaction starting to take place (foaming at the top of the liquid)
Within a few minutes you should notice a reaction taking place, the colour of the cyst should change from brown to grey to white to orange depending on the strength of the chemicals and the thickness of the shell.
Start of the reaction process
It's working
Almost finished!
When you notice that most of the cysts are orange in colour (90%) STOP! The process immediately by pouring the solution into a cotton hankie draped over another jar. Now, pour a small amount of white vinegar over de-capsulated eggs and once you've done this rinse the eggs under the tap to rid them of the entire bleach and vinegar residue.
Rinse with White Vinegar and with plenty of tap water
Finished Product - The Amber Nectar.
Once you have your de-capsulated eggs you can hatch them in the normal way, only this time you will have none of the annoying egg casings to contend with.
Ready for hatching using the normal conventional method.
This may seem a awful lot of trouble to go to in order to feed your fry or corals. Believe me it is well worth the effort, as you will attain a visually higher hatch rate along with clean no mess feeding.
Why don't you try it some time, see for yourself.
Larger amounts of eggs can be used along with large amounts of chemical agents for aquarists who need higher volume hatches to feed their fry. De-capsulated Brineshrimp can also be stored in a heavy brine solution (which effectively dehydrates the membrane thus allowing the aquarist to store the eggs for up to a month in the fridge. Of course you dont even have to hatch the nauplii you can feed the unhatched shrimp in the membrane, some say its better nutritionally for the fry. I'll leave you to decide.....
I hope this article was of some help to those aquarists who are fed up with hatching Brineshrimp and the constant battle of trying to separate shrimp from shell.
Regards
BigC[/size][/font]
Hi and thanks BigC the above was helpful in a major way. However, I sent an email to O.N. and got back confirmation that there are no capsules left in their product. Just "sterile newborn nauplii" so I tweaked google to search forums only for this product under "Anyone tried instant bbs" and several other search terms. It would seem that 99.9% of people that has used this on other aquatic forums gave glowing reports. It has been used as the sole food source to raise everything from gourami to sea horse fry.
I did come across a discussion on another forum where they collectively came together to suggest that it wouldn't have as much nutrition and bbs raised in the normal way but this was more theory than fact, especially after reading threads of those who had actually used it to raise fry as opposed to mere speculation about it's nutritional value.
Hatcheries are sold on ebay from £7 - £70 depending on the brand and as we all know, sometimes they don't hatch when we need them to. And it can be real time consuming. I mean your post while informative and extremely helpful is also a time consuming process in comparison to the instant stuff. And if you multiply that for a month (the average time I take before weening fry onto other foods...
One tub lasts for 6 week once opened
And I'm willing to give it a go
I did come across a discussion on another forum where they collectively came together to suggest that it wouldn't have as much nutrition and bbs raised in the normal way but this was more theory than fact, especially after reading threads of those who had actually used it to raise fry as opposed to mere speculation about it's nutritional value.
Hatcheries are sold on ebay from £7 - £70 depending on the brand and as we all know, sometimes they don't hatch when we need them to. And it can be real time consuming. I mean your post while informative and extremely helpful is also a time consuming process in comparison to the instant stuff. And if you multiply that for a month (the average time I take before weening fry onto other foods...
One tub lasts for 6 week once opened
And I'm willing to give it a go
I've been going with dehydrated decaps for a while now as a transitional food from fresh hatched bbs. Jar lasts indefinitely once opened, no refrigeration needed, at just under $13 per pound it's way cheaper than what Ocean Nutrition is selling; http
/www.brineshrimpdirect.com/c2/Decapsulated-Non-HatchingBrine-Shrimp-Eggs-c21.html
As far as re-hydrating, yea, the tank water does that just fine when you sprinkle them in dry.
/www.brineshrimpdirect.com/c2/Decapsulated-Non-HatchingBrine-Shrimp-Eggs-c21.htmlAs far as re-hydrating, yea, the tank water does that just fine when you sprinkle them in dry.
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