Hatching brine shrimp

[Bowhunterking]

Hello everyone i started a brine shrimp hatchery today to feed my fresh water tank, but what I wasn't sure about was the type of salt to use for it.

Any advice would be good.

 

[bob mccoy]

non iodized salt.. sea salt

 

[Alyxx]

I have great results using marine salt, but I happen to have it on hand because I have a saltwater tank. Non-iodized sea salt from the grocery store should work fine, though.

 

[giffmastaflex]

Where do you get the brine shrimp eggs? And what's your setup like?

 

[Alyxx]

I got mine at my lfs and I use an old two liter bottle with a hole drilled through the cap for the air line, which I have pushed down to the bottom of the bottle.

 

[Bowhunterking]

How do you seperate the hatchlings from the intact he'd eggs

 

[Alyxx]

I use a very fine net.

 

[giffmastaflex]

Does any one have a link on how to grow them and all?

 

[KTpoopenstein]

I worked for a lab for a number of years that used brine shrimp to feed some of the fish they used for research. We had a setup basically like this: http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...ry/63049-home-made-brine-shrimp-hatchery.html

The only difference that I can see is that instead of going through the trouble of drilling the bottle cap and sealing it with silicone we just used a drilled rubber stopper like this: http://www.amazon.com/Rubber-Stoppe...27162&sr=8-12&keywords=rubber+stopper+drilled

We had a setup of 4 bottles that we used for the brine shrimp culture, using one bottle for each of two feedings daily. To harvest the shrimp we'd turn off the air to the appropriate bottle and let things settle for 5-10 minutes. Most of the shrimp would settle to the bottom and the shells and unhatched eggs would float to the top. When things had settled enough you unhook the air line going to the bottle (at the pump end, not the bottle) and kink it closed until ready to drain through a super fine net (pretty much solid cloth) until the majority of the shrimp have been drained and the shells remain in the bottle. The shrimp were then rinsed into a beaker with fresh water and the remaining water and shells from the bottle were disposed of and the bottle cleaned with water only and then restarted.

I don't remember exactly how much salt (instant ocean) we used since we had a cup marked with the right amount for the bottle, but we used a medicine cup to measure the eggs and if I remember correctly we filled to about the 5mL line. I'm not positive on that though so hopefully someone can give you a better idea of how much salt/eggs to use.

 

[Bowhunterking]

Don't you net the eggs to though?

 

[Alyxx]

Yeah, but when you take out the bubbler the eggs mostly sink so most of what you catch is shrimp. There are hatcheries that use an inverted cup of fresh water to catch the hatchlings as they swim towards light, but I lost pieces and I haven't found a new one yet.

 

[KTpoopenstein]

I tried to explain this earlier but my post didn't post...so trying again.


I used to work for a lab that used brine shrimp to feed the research fish. We used a setup like this (but larger)



It's basically a plywood rack that held inverted 2 liter bottles with the bottoms cut off. Rather than using the cap and drilling a hole and sealing the air tubing with silicone, we used drilled rubber stoppers (readily available on amazon) which allowed for easy cleaning and a tight seal. We had air piping all around the lab so we didn't use a pump like anyone doing this at home would but each of the bottles was hooked up to a air control valve mounted well above the water line that allowed us to turn the air off to the one bottle we were using to allow the shrimp to settle to the bottom and the egg shells float to the top. After 5-10 minutes, disconnect the air tube from the control valve and kink the tube so it doesn't drain until you've got it over a brine shrimp net over a bowl or bucket or whatever you want to use to catch the waste water. Drain it down enough to get the vast majority of the shrimp but leave the egg shells in the bottle. At this point you can either drain the rest of the bottle into your waste container or plug the tube back into the valve until you're ready to clean the bottle and restart the culture. Rinse the brine shrimp in the net into a clean container with fresh water so you can feed them to your fish easily...we used a ~2.5 mL dropper. As far as cleaning the setup and starting it back over, once it's completely drained, disassemble and rinse thoroughly with water only and wipe off any crud that might have accumulated. Reassemble and fill about 2/3 of the way with fresh water, turn the air back on and add salt (we used instant ocean) to 25ppt. Let that mix for a minute or two before you add the eggs...1/2 tsp per quart.

We had 4 bottles running at all times for the lab. We used one bottle for each of two feedings daily for several thousand fish (Fundulus heteroclitus, Danio rerio and one other I can't remember) and rotated which bottle was used for each feeding so they had ~48 hours to hatch and grow before we used them. Even after feeding everybody we still frequently had a lot left over that I took home to feed my fish periodically so you may want to use a smaller setup or use less eggs per batch so you don't toss out a ton.

Hope this all makes sense!