New born brine shrimp

[Paul B]

In my opinion baby brine shrimp are one of the best foods for many small fish and they are so easy to hatch and feed that I think anyone who keeps small gobies, pipefish etc should be hatching these. I made a small hatchery many years ago that I still use every day. It's a small square plactic container about a pint and a half. One side is black and one side is clear. There is a black barrier across the two sections with a 1/4" hole in it. The hole is plugged with something that can be removed easily. The eggs are put in the black side with a small bubbler. In about a day and a half the eggs hatch. The plug is removed from the hole, the air is stopped and a black cover is added to the egg side. A small light is put near the clear side and in an hour all of the shrimp swim to the lighted side and the eggs stay on the dark side. Put the plug back in and siphon out the shrimp. Strain out the shrimp eggs, throw them away and add more tank water and start up again.
I have been doing this almost every day for many years (three decades) :badgrin:
I believe this is one reason my reef is so old. The firefish, pipefish, mandarin, clown gobies and even the ten year old fireclown love these things. They are healthiest as soon as they hatch. The pumps should be turned off for an hour or so to feed them or the fish can't find them. They are also very cheap. $5.00 worth of eggs lasts me about 3 months.
I am sure the corals take a supply of them too.
Have a great day.
Paul

 

[esears]

In my opinion baby brine shrimp are one of the best foods for many small fish and they are so easy to hatch and feed that I think anyone who keeps small gobies, pipefish etc should be hatching these. I made a small hatchery many years ago that I still use every day. It's a small square plactic container about a pint and a half. One side is black and one side is clear. There is a black barrier across the two sections with a 1/4" hole in it. The hole is plugged with something that can be removed easily. The eggs are put in the black side with a small bubbler. In about a day and a half the eggs hatch. The plug is removed from the hole, the air is stopped and a black cover is added to the egg side. A small light is put near the clear side and in an hour all of the shrimp swim to the lighted side and the eggs stay on the dark side. Put the plug back in and siphon out the shrimp. Strain out the shrimp eggs, throw them away and add more tank water and start up again.
I have been doing this almost every day for many years (three decades) :badgrin:
I believe this is one reason my reef is so old. The firefish, pipefish, mandarin, clown gobies and even the ten year old fireclown love these things. They are healthiest as soon as they hatch. The pumps should be turned off for an hour or so to feed them or the fish can't find them. They are also very cheap. $5.00 worth of eggs lasts me about 3 months.
I am sure the corals take a supply of them too.
Have a great day.
Paul

Where would i find the eggs and is there any chance you could take a picture of your hatching stup? I work a lot better with pictures than words

Eric

 

[LakeEd]

Sounds like a great DIY (Do It Yourself) project there Paul. Do you have any pictures of your Hatchery to help others in designing their own?

 

[Paul B]

The small black thing is the guillotine door that seperates one side from the other, the large black thing is the cover.
Have fun.
Paul

 

[charlyclown]

I have been feeding brine shrimp for more than a year now and found the hatchery dish to be the easiest and least time consuming way to grow them. No need for air pump, or extra light. You can find the hatchery at

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/store.cfm?d=3249&c=5279&p=27377&do=detail

The baby brine shrimp collect in the middle (that's the exposed area = light) and can be taken out with the provided small cup. This cup has a mesh at the bottom, so you take out just the nauplii and not the water or shells. Really great design. It's all quiet and low tech.
http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/ also sells good quality brineshrimp eggs. I buy

 

[sryder]

paul i had purchased one of the soda bottle hatcherys and will try it on wendsday. once the brine are hatched and removed from the hatchery is there any way to keep them alive for any lengths of time?

 

[charlyclown]

I tried the soda bottle hatchery first but it was messy and somewhat noisy. The hatchery dish was really a blessing. I probably would not have continued hatching brine shrimps otherwise. You can keep the nauplii alive, just transfer them to another bottle and you can feed them egg yolk, whey, fish meal. However, you need to be careful not to overfeed and process the food in a food processor and add dropwise. I have done that just a few times but I figured out that the newly hatched nauplii are more nutritious and easier to handle and take care of than the growing brine shrimps. Also, on eBay you can often find very good deals on brine shrimp eggs. I bought half a pound for about 5$, store them tightly closed in the freezer and they still hatch very well.

 

[Detri]

I have been thinking alot about doing this myself. I only have a small tank. But we have a 600g at work. What I don't use I can use at work. Would be benificial all around.

 

[liveforphysics]

I used to hatch with a 2L bottle and an air pump. Now I just toss them in the fuge, and nature seems to take it course. I dont know what the hatch percentages are or anything fancy like that, but I see pleanty of them swimming around.

Elmo18 has a slick way of de-shelling them with chlorine (if I remember correctly) and then a de-chloronator afterwards. I'm sure he could elaborate on the method in more detail.

When I would toss his de-shelled eggs into my fuge, they seemed to hatch in just a few hours.


I have to move again, and when I setup my tank the next time, I will be incorporating an additional 20gal fuge to pack with a bunch of live breeders like mollys (will experiment to see what works the best of course) or similar to keep a natural supply of little critters in there.

If anyone has done that, I would appreciate feedback on how it worked and what species of live breeder you used.

 

[Elmo18]

Ah yes, Luke is correct. I do practice brine decapsulation and dechlorination (which is required during the decapsulation process).

In my opinion, it helps increase hatch rates...and decrease mortalities due to ingestion of shells.

Best,
Ilham

 

[Paul B]

Sryder they can be raised easily, you can use the foods mentioned, I use brewers yeast or a commercially available liquid coral food. They are filter feeders and will eat anything small enough. The problem is that they are very nutritious as soon as they hatch when they have a yoke sack and in about a day lose that and start to feed. After that they are not the best food. They are cheap enough and easy enough to hatch every day. You can also de-capsulate them with a little more work as was said if you like.
Have fun.
Paul

 

[Wink]

Decapsulating the eggs also leads to more nutritious shrimp as they use less energy breaking out of the shell, and you avoid hatching hydroids along with your shrimp. Also, San Francisco Bay strain (not brand) brine are quite a bit smaller and have a better nutritional profile then the standard Great Salt Lake strain.

 

[MCary]

Baby brine can be kept alive and nutritious for a few days by putting them in the refrigerator.

 

[Slickdonkey]

I wonder if I could concoct something that would pump these guys into my fuge and up the return pump to the tank.

Or like Luke said, just dump the eggs in the fuge and see what happens.

I know there are better ways to do it but I'm always looking for a way to reduce the daily chores, even if it's something that only takes 2 minutes.

 

[liveforphysics]

I hear you on that slickdonkey. If you or others are interested in actaully chipping in a little $$, I will build some programmed microcontroler regulated hatcheries to trickle in a few eggs each day from a little hopper, hatch them, and then drain the shrimp into the tank while autoscrapeing off the shell remains into a little dixey cup before auto refilling the hatchery with water and new eggs. I would guess a 1 cup hopper of brine eggs, and a single small dixey cup could run the machine for a few months at least with no maintence needs. Seems like a pretty simple thing to automate, just a 4 channel output pic micro and software, along with a couple of silinoid valves, and electric motor and a powerhead.

 

[Paul B]

I always turn off all my pumps to feed live shrimp or any other food and I always use a baster looking thing. I want all the food in my fish and none of it behind the rocks.
Paul

 

[wingnut247]

green is good

paul i had purchased one of the soda bottle hatcherys and will try it on wendsday. once the brine are hatched and removed from the hatchery is there any way to keep them alive for any lengths of time?

I hatch my brine shrimp in newly mixed salt water with some green water (even just a squirt of DT's), with the light on 24/7.

After 36 hours I shut off the air bubbles... the bbs swim to the light... I get them with a turkey baster... and then strain and rinse them.

I move the brine shrimp and green water out of the hatchers into a glass container and set it near the light... they will last for weeks in the green water... but I'm not sure how much nutrition they pack just eating green water though. I imagine you could feed them spirolina too.

Florida aqua farms has a cool glass funnel brine hatchery... but I use 2 ltr bottles too (lots cheaper) vinegar bath and rinse between batchs to cut back on the bacteria problems.

 

[Elmo18]

but I use 2 ltr bottles too (lots cheaper) vinegar bath and rinse between batchs to cut back on the bacteria problems.

Nothing wrong with 2L bottles. Heck, dump the grosse tastin Coca Cola Zero, and use the bottle

Best,
Ilham

 

[SWPlantedTank]

Also, San Francisco Bay strain (not brand) brine are quite a bit smaller and have a better nutritional profile then the standard Great Salt Lake strain.

Is this true? I know the SF type are smaller, but are they more nutritious?

 

[aquariumdebacle]

The strain of brine shrimp that come from the San Francisco bay are a better strain to feed saltwater animals. The Great Lakes strain are a better strain to feed freshwater animals or at least that is my understanding (not much freshwater experience here!) It is due to the HUFA (fatty acid) content and lipids or some such detail that I am only vaguely aware of.

A well fed adult brine shrimp will have a black line down the middle of it's body. If it does not have this line it is a nutrionally starved animal and is roughly the equivelent of feeding your fish popcorn. They really enjoy it but they get little in the way of nutrition. Conversely a well fed adult brine shrimp is an excellent source of nutrition and an excellent way to get Spirulina into predatory species. They can also be "gut-loaded" with vitamins or even medication to fortify and enhance the nutritional/medicinal needs of individual fish.

I would recommend decapuslation by the bleach process; especially for the seahorse specimens due to the introduction of hydroids when hatched with the shells intact. The decapsulated shrimp eggs can be added directly to the main display and any eggs that are not immediately consumed will hatch in a short period of time and then be consumed. Planktivores especially enjoy these treats as well as the Japanese sushi delicacy Tombiko or Kombiko (the little orange eggs on the outside of a Califonia roll.)