Brine Shrimp

[Ivy]

I am attempting to breed my own brine shrimp as food for my fish. I took one L of water and one teaspoon of eggs. I aerated it for one hour then used some aquarium salt. I aerated on and off for another 24 hours. One day later, I had about 10000 baby brine shrimp. I fed them a shrimp pellet, and let them be for the night. I got up this am and there are hardly any swimming shrimp left. I have directed a light toward the bottom, which I did this am. What am I doing wrong? Also, since the eggs can't be processed by my fish, how do I separate the live ones from the eggs. Thx

 

[BillD]

If you are going to feed newly hatched baby brine shrimp, they should be fed as soon after hatching as possible to get the full value of the yolk sac. Once that is used up , the food value of the BBS drops significantly. The BBS won't eat until after the yolk sac is gone, and definitely not shrimp pellets. The BBS must be kept aerated or they will die, which is what appears to have happened with your batch. Keep the aeration constant while hatching, and a light on them ( I found recently that my hatch rate improved with light). The cysts need to be kept moving gently so they don't stick together; this improves the hatch rate.
The cysts that float won't hatch, and good ones sink to the botttom. The live shrimp will be in between. Siphon them off with a piece of airline tubing. I decapsulate the cysts using bleach so that all the cysts can be eaten whether they hatch or not (I am using cysts that are over 10 years old). If you are trying to raise somwe to adulthood, the situation becomes a little different, as the salinty requirement changes and you need some form of food. I wouldn't consider doing it unless I had a sizeable container, such as a childs wading pool of several hundred gallons, as it wouldn't be worth the effort in my opinion. However, if you are interested in doing it for the experience, it can be done in a tank. A search should find you info on the fine points of doing so.

 

[Ivy]

I'm gonna go look that up when I have some more time. The invertebrate teacher at school is having trouble keeping his for more than a week or so, so I guess I'm gonna have to play with it some. Thanks for the advice. Wish me luck!