Chad Vossen
12-17-2009, 02:15 PM
Hatching brine shrimp
There are many products for hatching brine shrimp. But in the end, you can do just as well with a jar and an air pump.
Using a soda bottle or jar, simply add water from your reef and add just enough brine shrimp eggs to cover the surface of the water (more or less depending on the volume of the water vs. the surface area). Add the air bubbler so that the eggs are constantly flowing with the water current. To much aeration and the eggs will get pushed out of the water by the bubbles, to little aeration and the brine shrimp could suffocate if you have a huge amount of eggs to hatch. A steady stream of air bubbles is all that’s needed in most cases.
24 hours later you should have fully hatched brine shrimp (if the water is kept warm, it could be much quicker than 24 hours). Now comes the task of picking out all those eggshells by hand. Actually, there’s a trick to this. All you need is a clear container, completely dark room, air hose to use as a siphon or pipette and a LED flashlight. What you do is pour your brine shrimp and eggshells into the clear container. Place this in a very dark room (NO light at all) and place the LED flash light at a corner of the container. Give it 10 mins and the eggs will either sink or float while most of the brine shrimp (which are attracted to light) will all be trying to swim at the flash light. Now that you have a orange blob of brine shrimp with almost no eggs around, suck them out with the pipette or siphon them into a new jar. Do this a few times to get as many brine shrimp out. If you really need zero eggs with your brine shrimp, you can do this again with the “clean” brine shrimp.
Now that you have brine shrimp without the eggshells, keep them moving with an air bubbler so they don’t suffocate. You can either feed them to your fish or corals, or raise them!
Raising brine shrimp to adult size
Now that you have mastered the art of culturing phytoplankton (http://www.tcmas.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22042) and hatching brine shrimp, you can merge these two skills together to raise your own adult brine shrimp.
What I have done to do this is simply add the baby brine shrimp to an existing new culture of phytoplankton. The baby brine shrimp will not be able to eat the phytoplankton faster than it can grow. Your brine shrimp should be fully grown in 2 weeks depending on temperature. It also seems that the phytoplankton last a little longer when your growing brine shrimp, possibly because the brine shrimp’s waste is fertilizing the phytoplankton.
Another method you can use is to have a 5-gallon bucket filled with aged tank water and an air bubbler (a sponge filter may help too). Just add your brine shrimp to this bucket and add enough phytoplankton to tint the water light green. You still want to be able to see the bottom. Again in 2-3 weeks, you should have adult brine shrimp, and if you keep growing them, they will even reproduce and have more babies. just don't forget to keep adding phytoplankton to maintain a tinted green water.
Continuous cultures are easy to set up, basically use the 5-gallon bucket method to grow them (or any size tank, a 55 gallon barrel of brine shrimp would be cool) and just keep dumping in baby brine shrimp every few days. To harvest, just use a regular fish net to scoop up some brine shrimp (the babies and really small shrimp should pass through the net, while the adults get caught).
What will you do with your brine shrimp?
You can use newly hatched brine shrimp to as the second food source for larval fish, or the first food for larval shrimp/crabs. You could feed them to your tank as a treat or to condition your fish into spawning. Adult brine shrimp can be used as a treat for your reef (both fish and corals love them); and best of all, they will have a full stomach of phytoplankton which makes them enriched! Also, you can sell your adult brine shrimp at club meetings or to the local stores. I’m sure you could fetch something like 10-15$ per gallon of adult brine shrimp easily. You can also just keep them as pets, and have the largest number of sea monkeys anyone has ever had.
there is more to this as well. there is enriching baby brine shrimp, but i don't have experience with that yet. that's information you can find on the internet. there is also decapsulating brine shrimp eggs, which is using bleach to dissolve the egg shell away. my attempt did not work well, so i didn't include it.
There are many products for hatching brine shrimp. But in the end, you can do just as well with a jar and an air pump.
Using a soda bottle or jar, simply add water from your reef and add just enough brine shrimp eggs to cover the surface of the water (more or less depending on the volume of the water vs. the surface area). Add the air bubbler so that the eggs are constantly flowing with the water current. To much aeration and the eggs will get pushed out of the water by the bubbles, to little aeration and the brine shrimp could suffocate if you have a huge amount of eggs to hatch. A steady stream of air bubbles is all that’s needed in most cases.
24 hours later you should have fully hatched brine shrimp (if the water is kept warm, it could be much quicker than 24 hours). Now comes the task of picking out all those eggshells by hand. Actually, there’s a trick to this. All you need is a clear container, completely dark room, air hose to use as a siphon or pipette and a LED flashlight. What you do is pour your brine shrimp and eggshells into the clear container. Place this in a very dark room (NO light at all) and place the LED flash light at a corner of the container. Give it 10 mins and the eggs will either sink or float while most of the brine shrimp (which are attracted to light) will all be trying to swim at the flash light. Now that you have a orange blob of brine shrimp with almost no eggs around, suck them out with the pipette or siphon them into a new jar. Do this a few times to get as many brine shrimp out. If you really need zero eggs with your brine shrimp, you can do this again with the “clean” brine shrimp.
Now that you have brine shrimp without the eggshells, keep them moving with an air bubbler so they don’t suffocate. You can either feed them to your fish or corals, or raise them!
Raising brine shrimp to adult size
Now that you have mastered the art of culturing phytoplankton (http://www.tcmas.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22042) and hatching brine shrimp, you can merge these two skills together to raise your own adult brine shrimp.
What I have done to do this is simply add the baby brine shrimp to an existing new culture of phytoplankton. The baby brine shrimp will not be able to eat the phytoplankton faster than it can grow. Your brine shrimp should be fully grown in 2 weeks depending on temperature. It also seems that the phytoplankton last a little longer when your growing brine shrimp, possibly because the brine shrimp’s waste is fertilizing the phytoplankton.
Another method you can use is to have a 5-gallon bucket filled with aged tank water and an air bubbler (a sponge filter may help too). Just add your brine shrimp to this bucket and add enough phytoplankton to tint the water light green. You still want to be able to see the bottom. Again in 2-3 weeks, you should have adult brine shrimp, and if you keep growing them, they will even reproduce and have more babies. just don't forget to keep adding phytoplankton to maintain a tinted green water.
Continuous cultures are easy to set up, basically use the 5-gallon bucket method to grow them (or any size tank, a 55 gallon barrel of brine shrimp would be cool) and just keep dumping in baby brine shrimp every few days. To harvest, just use a regular fish net to scoop up some brine shrimp (the babies and really small shrimp should pass through the net, while the adults get caught).
What will you do with your brine shrimp?
You can use newly hatched brine shrimp to as the second food source for larval fish, or the first food for larval shrimp/crabs. You could feed them to your tank as a treat or to condition your fish into spawning. Adult brine shrimp can be used as a treat for your reef (both fish and corals love them); and best of all, they will have a full stomach of phytoplankton which makes them enriched! Also, you can sell your adult brine shrimp at club meetings or to the local stores. I’m sure you could fetch something like 10-15$ per gallon of adult brine shrimp easily. You can also just keep them as pets, and have the largest number of sea monkeys anyone has ever had.
there is more to this as well. there is enriching baby brine shrimp, but i don't have experience with that yet. that's information you can find on the internet. there is also decapsulating brine shrimp eggs, which is using bleach to dissolve the egg shell away. my attempt did not work well, so i didn't include it.