Decapsulating Brine Shrimp Eggs

[Vicki]

Though I don't have much experience in this, I have had success in decapsulating brine shrimp eggs and took some pictures the other day in hopes pictures would make it easier to explain.

For years I'd just added the whole brine shrimp eggs into a container and bubbled them in saltwater until they hatched and dealt with having to sort out the baby brine shrimp and the egg shells. It's very difficult to separate the babies without getting any shells when you're feeding baby fish.

Picture one. Gather the necessary equipment to tackle the task. In this example I'm using the amount necessary to fill my two hatching containers. You certainly can use different amounts if you want more or less eggs decapsulated; just keep the amounts of water and bleach the same and use enough water to keep them covered, plus some.
1) You need a small container to do the mixing in. A round container is my preference for getting all the eggs decapsulated.
2) A measuring cup. I'm using a 1/3 Cup.
3) A measuring spoon. I'm using a 1/2 Tablespoon.
4) 1/3 Cup of Water. Tap water is just fine.
5) 1/3 Cup of household bleach.
6) A brine shrimp net.
7) Airline tubing connected to an air pump.
8) Brine Shrimp Eggs.

Picture two.
1) Put the 1/3 cup of water into the mixing container.
2) Add the 1/2 Tablespoon Brine Shrimp Eggs into the mixing container.
3) Use the airline tubing to aerate the eggs for about an hour and stir them up several times during the hour.

Picture three.
1) After an hour, most of the brine shrimp eggs are fully soaked and will sink to the bottom.

Pictures four and five.
1) Add the 1/3 cup of household bleach to the mixing bowl.
2) It will get a slight foam on the top
3) I stir almost constantly with the airline tubing at this point.
4) It takes 5 or 6 minutes for the bleach to dissolve the eggshells.
5) The eggs will change in color from brown to orange.

 

[Vicki]

Decapsulating Brine Shrimp Eggs

Picture 6.
1) Pour all the decapsulated eggs into the brine shrimp net and rinse out the mixing bowl with water (again, tap water is fine) and pour through the brine shrimp net until you have all the eggs out.

Picture 7.
1) Rinse the eggs under running water for at least 1 minute to remove all of the bleach.

Picture 8.
1) This is how they should look afterwards.

Pictures 9 and 10.
1) Place an appropriate amount of the decapsulated eggs into your hatching container and aerate at a slow boil until the babies hatch.
2) Once the babies have hatched, slow the aeration down to keep the babies alive for several days.
I start a new batch of babies every other day and decapsulate eggs every other day. I find doing it fun! It is my understanding that you can decapsulated more than needed at one time and keep the extras for some time in the refrigerator for a short time in a very, very, salty brine solution.

 

[Vicki]

Decapsulating Brine Shrimp Eggs

Pictures 11, 12 and 13.
Raising the babies to maturity is also a lot of fun and all your fish will thank you for it.

After my daily feedings of the baby brine shrimp to my tanks, I take all those that are left over and put them in a 10 gallon tank with good aeration. In two to four weeks you'll have lots of live feed for your fish. I find them extremely fascinating to watch. They are so graceful. It's hard not getting attached to them.

I hatch and raise them in a salinity of 1.018ish. I feed them whatever type of phytoplankton I have around, just keeping the water a slight green color.

Give it a try. It's easier than you thought!

Vicki

 

[danno14]

Nicely done!

It makes me consider following your lead
Rgds,
Dan

 

[Elmo18]

Well done Vicky!!!

Brine is about the easiest, and greatest (if gut loaded) live foods for new and incoming arrivals.

How are the clownfish and babies?

Best,
Ilham

 

[krisfal]

Ilham or anyone,
Can you explain how to gut load brine shrimp. I am planning on getting a manderin and from what I am reading brine shrimp is probably my best option for feeding it in QT.

I used to gut load crickets to feed a lizard and it was just a matter of sprinkling vitamin powder on the fruit they ate. But I am not sure what to feed the brine shrimp for the best results.

Any help will be appreciated.

Vicki,
Awesome job on the procedure to decaspulate the eggs. I had read about the process before but it seemed complicated, and seperating the the hatched brine shrimp from the egg cases is a hassle IMO. I look forward to trying this method.

Thanks, Kris

 

[Elmo18]

Hi Kris. I will take a stab.

Some foods, while having their strength in luring new animals to eating, just do not have their nutritional content suitable to keeping the specific animals in good health.

Brine shrimp is a great example. THey are perfect when they have just hatched, since their yolk sac still has a good amount of protein. They are also great as full adults, and even better when gut-loaded. Along their life cycle, they are not that great when their yolk sac has run out, and when they are not adults. While fish go crazy for them...they are just like 'candy'.

Now brine shrimp are filter feeders, and use their appendages to channel food/nutrients to them. If we are talking about the Great Salt Lake strain of Brine shrimp, then their normal natural diet consist of an algae of the Dunaliella sp., basically small, single-celled algae. They do eat other microorganisms, and not strictly one type of algae.

I have not done experiments, so this is just from a IME/IMO point of view, but for gut-loading, you want to add some "algae", be it homemade algae, or DTs, or other sources of algae to your brine shrimp culture, at least 30 minutes before feeding. This will give the shrimp enough time to get at the foods, and get it inside of them. Dumping algae, then feeding shrimp right afterwards is rather useless and a waste of algae.

Gut-loading is just that. The term means to fill up the animal/plant/thing with something else, to better its nutritional value. Since fish and other animals necessarily are not able to see small single celled algae, they still get their benefits when they eat the brine shrimp.

I hope that helped a little. Vicky I'm sure will have more to add. Those are some nice brine shrimp growout tanks!

Best,
Ilham

 

[krisfal]

Thank you Ilham. That is exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Mesocosms]

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about "gut-loading" live foods for freshwater and marine ornamentals, but were afraid to ask ...

Handbook of Protocols and Guidelines for Culture and Enrichment of Live Food for Use in Larviculture
Naser Agh & Patrick Sorgeloos
Artemia & Aquatic Animals Research Center
March, 2005

Full Article (pdf)
http://www.urmia.ac.ir/PubFiles/203140_handbook final.pdf

 

[Vicki]

Thanks everyone. I've enjoyed doing it.

Selcon is something to add to the water (a drop or two) when gut-loading brine shrimp too.

I've seen some powdered food for brine shrimp. Has anyone had any luck with that? I'd sure like to find a way to get them growing faster.

The Tomato Clown babies are doing GREAT!
How do you make the parents stop laying more eggs?

Vicki

 

[Maxx]

Moved this out of the Workshop Forum to the Advanced Topics Forum.

Great info Vicki! Thanks for sharing!.

Nick

 

[fishface]

Picture 6.
1) Pour all the decapsulated eggs into the brine shrimp net and rinse out the mixing bowl with water (again, tap water is fine) and pour through the brine shrimp net until you have all the eggs out.

so i'm not quite sure how the separation of babies and egg casings is working here. can you please explain in greater detail as to where the capsules are separated.

thanks,

 

[Vicki]

so i'm not quite sure how the separation of babies and egg casings is working here. can you please explain in greater detail as to where the capsules are separated.

thanks,

See pictures 4 and 5 above. The egg shells are dissolved by the bleach. The brine shrimp then hatch without any egg shells.

Vicki

 

[fishface]

uh hu! ok, thanks Vicki! just wasn't sure where they went

 

[fishface]

well i tried this today but my bs net let all the eggs through is there anything else around the house one could use that would work better?

 

[Vicki]

well i tried this today but my bs net let all the eggs through is there anything else around the house one could use that would work better?

Are you sure it was a brine shrimp net? They're usually white and very fine netting.

A coffee filter should also work, but I'd guess it would be a slower rinsing process and could possibly tear. Let me know if that works.

Vicki

 

[fishface]

yes i'm sure it was a bs net...fine but not fine enough! i'll have to try something else i suppose.

 

[btuck]

I hatch and raise them in a salinity of 1.018ish. I feed them whatever type of phytoplankton I have around, just keeping the water a slight green color.

I keep mine at a slightly higher salinity. I try and match the salinity of my tank water so they aren't as shocked when they enter the tank. I am feeding mine to seahorses from time to time and they don't all get eaten at once. So the longer they stay alive in the tank the better.

I have never tried decaping mine but it seems easy enough. To be quite honest I go and buy them from a LFS already as adults. I know I know it's lazy but less work. Ok so on with the questions.

You say to add a drop or two of selcon to gutload but...how much water are you adding a drop or two to. Say a drop per gallon??? More??? Less??

How long do you think before the brine are actually building "muscle" through nutrition and not just being gut loaded?

Thanks for your help!!!

 

[Vicki]

Keeping the brine shrimp at a higher salinity is just fine. I'm sure they appreciate the acclimation!

I've never noticed a problem with them going into shock when placed into a higher salinity tank. I'm certainly NOT an expert on this though.

I don't believe there is a LFS around here that has live brine shrimp. I'd probably buy some once in a while too. Seems to take forever for them to grow up. I do like raising my own as then I know exactly where they've been and how they've been raised.

Looking at the Selcon label, it suggests adding one ml to a 'portion' of brine shrimp and aerating heavily, then waiting 12 hours before releasing the brine shrimp for feeding. That seems like a lot to me, but again, I'm not an expert. Maybe an expert will add to this. My guess is that a ml is about 15--20 drops. I keep my brine shrimp in a 10 gallon aquarium and add about 10 drops every few days. I use the Selcon just as another supplement.

As to "How long do you think before the brine are actually building "muscle" through nutrition and not just being gut loaded?", I don't have a clue. As long as they've had a good diet all their life, I'm pretty sure the fish will enjoy them. They sure get excited.

Vicki

 

[btuck]

Ok well maybe they don't go into "shock" but I want them to survive as long as possible. :lol: It's hard enough keeping a seahorse tank clean without the little buggers dying before they can be eaten.
I like the selcon because it contains the HUFA something I know that is needed by my little guys. But I've read horror stories of selcon fouling the water and killing off an entire batch of brine. :shock:

Have you tried feeding them anything else to enrich?

Also do you believe that brine shouldn't be the only item used for food, even when they are enriched. I'm just trying to get various opinions. Don't get me wrong I feed both brine and mysis, and the occasional ghost shrimp enriched with cyclopeeze. hmmmm speaking of which do you think cyclopeeze is too large for brine to eat on? Probably...

Anyway thanks for you help