Brine shrimp

[Swampman]

Hi I finnally have my brine shrimp hatchery working. I feed the fish once a day with the shrimp. But I do not know how much to feed. Flake food is 30second rule. But live shrimp doesn't seem to work with that rule. Now I believe I'm feeding too much because I seem to be getting snails. Snails in these tanks were not a problem. I also hatch one teaspoon of eggs and I have enough for a second feeding the next day. Is there any harm in that? Or should I cut down on hatching eggs for just one day. Thanks

 

[Andy Sager]

Hi I finnally have my brine shrimp hatchery working. I feed the fish once a day with the shrimp. But I do not know how much to feed. Flake food is 30second rule. But live shrimp doesn't seem to work with that rule. Now I believe I'm feeding too much because I seem to be getting snails. Snails in these tanks were not a problem. I also hatch one teaspoon of eggs and I have enough for a second feeding the next day. Is there any harm in that? Or should I cut down on hatching eggs for just one day. Thanks

Brine shrimp nuplii are their most nutritious for the first 6 hours +/- after they hatch while they too have a yolk sac they are absorbing so you really want to feed any fry as newly hatched shrimp as you can. As for how much to feed, that's all going to depend on how many fry you have. The odds of you feeding exactly how much your fry are going to eat at one sitting is extremely low. The rule of thumb is take a siphon tube with a piece of rigid tubing on the end so that you can point the tube at the leftover uneaten shrimp and suck them out of the tank. Having snails in a fry tank is not the worst thing as they will help eat some of those leftover shrimp making your cleanup a bit easier.
As for how often to feed, I feed my Angelfish fry 3 times per day. ( Morning, afternoon and night. I used the 3 hatcheries in the pic) You may want to hatch less shrimp per hatchery, use multiple hatcheries to better time out the hatching and feed the fry that smaller amount of shrimp more often than just once a day.