first time brine shrimp project.

[hippy guy]

So I gought some san fransisco bay brand brine shrimp eggs at my lfs. The guy was dumping a few packs into a super sized sfb brand hatchery (must have been 3 or 4 gallons) and hee told me it was pretty simple, so here I am, doing more research (had done a bit) and rigged my own setup. Basically a 2 liter (packets say use 1 liter container) and I rigged air tubing through the cap, and added another straw to help air flow, as well as some holes. Water was from my tank (cycled) and its been about an hour, suposidly byy tomorow I should have brine shrimp for my fisheys... any advice/who's succesfully done this??

 

[hippy guy]

The third pic shows the bottom..should it all be settles at the bottom like that?

 

[jetajockey]

no, you need to keep the eggs suspending in the water column. This is done by running the air line tube down there and cranking up the air.

It looks like you are rigged up to set it up upside down. A lot of DIYs call for it to be done this way, but personally I just stick the airline tube down into the bottom of the 2l bottle and let er rip.

You also need to add salt or baking soda. I put 3 tablespoons of either salt or baking soda for a 2l bottle

 

[hippy guy]

Ok so here's what I did, I believe its what you were saying
(Used an extra airstone to weight the tuping down and increase the movement to keep eggs suspended whilst still leaving air for my bubble wall in my comm. Tank

 

[jetajockey]

Airstones really aren't recommended because its said that the fine bubbles can trap air in the carapaces of brine shrimp. I've not tried it though so I can't say for sure.

I would add more water volume to the container also, I fill mine all the way to where the bottle starts to curve back inward.

 

[BillD]

You are better to use water from the tap, without removing the chlorine rather than tank water (brine shrimp cysts harbor a huge amount of bacteria). Your setup is similar to mine, but I remove the bottom of the bottle, and float the bottle in a small tank. A 5 gallon tank will hold 3. The air comes in the bottom and when I want to feed, I drain the bbs with the air line into a filter/brine shrimp net. You need just enough air to turn the eggs over and as mentioned an air stone is counter productive as it will shoot the cysts out of the water. At 80 F they hatch in 18 to 24 hours and a light shining on them seems to help. For that reason a clear bottle would have been netter.
The main reason for using the bottle inverted is to aid in keeping the cysts in motion. As they fall back to the bottom they move to the air line and are forced up into the water column.
A few other things that help is the addition of a small amount of baking soda ( a pinch or even a teaspoon), to keep the pH up. The bbs should be fed to your fish as soon as possible after hatching as their food value diminishes quickly as they absorb their yolk sacks. Basically you are feeding your fish with moving yolk sacks.

 

[Homer8]

no, you need to keep the eggs suspending in the water column. This is done by running the air line tube down there and cranking up the air.

It looks like you are rigged up to set it up upside down. A lot of DIYs call for it to be done this way, but personally I just stick the airline tube down into the bottom of the 2l bottle and let er rip.

You also need to add salt or baking soda. I put 3 tablespoons of either salt or baking soda for a 2l bottle

The baking soda is for pH and you only ad a pinch. You need salt tho and use aquarium salt. I have a san fransisco bay hatchery which works very well. what you need to make your own is two 2 liter bottles. the first one you cuse the top off of and the second you cut just the bottom and stick it into the other. ill find you the video.
Do EXACTLY what this guy does and you will have brine shrimp in 24-48 hours

The first image is what i have the second is what you need to do except leave the cap on the 2 liter. this way you stick the airline tube down into the cone of the 2 liter and the bubbles keep the eggs/ brine shrimp suspended

 

[jetajockey]

The baking soda is for pH and you only ad a pinch. You need salt tho and use aquarium salt.

No, you don't need salt. I hatch BBS with nothing but baking soda alone. It works, but the container needs to be rinsed really well between uses because it gets buildup on it.

I originally learned about the method at this site Wayne Schmidt's Brine Shrimp Hatching Page

If you do insist on using salt, you don't have to use aquarium salt. Kosher salt is the same thing and is way cheaper.

I've used regular table salt as well and it was fine, but some people don't because of the iodide. The bbs should be rinsed before feeding though so I don't see why that'd be an issue, even if there was enough to cause a problem.

 

[Homer8]

you have to make sure its not iodized salt. Ive never heard of brine shrimp hatching without a brine solution

 

[hippy guy]

Idk... I've decided brine shrimp is much too time consuming for me, as for what I learned, I don't think table salt would work...but iduno

 

[Homer8]

Its really not time consuming at all. You set up you shrimp hatchery which is two 2 liter bottles and an air line tube. Put in your salt and water and a pinch of baking soda. Then put in your brine shrimp eggs and wait. Thats it

 

[jetajockey]

I've used table salt and it's worked fine for me, but I'm not really in the business of convincing anyone otherwise, so if people really want to use expensive aquarium salt, or salt at all (the baking soda method works great), then it really doesn't hurt my feelings. Hatching brine shrimp can be a time consuming process but it's a staple for small fry.

I find myself switching between BBS and microworms until the fry are large enough to where I can tell if they are eating powder.

 

[hippy guy]

Ill totally agree with you on the brine being good for baby fish, but that's basically all I really know, I didn't even realize I needed a diff. Net until they hatched lol (had to go out and get one) I don't think ill make another attempt for some time, which is cool, because I don't have any fish that need them, I just wanted to try somthn new for my betta and the neons I suppose i

 

[jetajockey]

I don't use a brine shrimp net. I do have a plastic sieve that I use sometimes, but before I got that I just used coffee filters. Use an airline tubing to suck the BBS out of the solution and into the coffee filter, rinse, serve.

 

[andresdeo]

Hey, I have a question related to the subject, what fish benefit of being fed with brine shrimp? Salt and freshwater?

 

[hippy guy]

Live food is bascally un processed and contains the nutrients your fish evolved to need