Brine shrimp die as soon as they hatch. Any ideas?

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Nabbig2

Fire Eel
MFK Member
May 28, 2007
2,602
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California

I tried two different providers of brine shrimp eggs, SF bay brand and Vpoint. They usually hatch into the first stage, but they are always dead and never move. They just end up rotting and my fry are left starving to death. I tried tap water, dechlorinated tap water, distilled water, cold, heat, no difference. They literally somehow hatch dead. Any ideas wtf is going on?
 
Salt and baking soda? Doesn’t need to be special water. I use reef salt because I have it but kosher salt works just fine.
Do you refrigerate your eggs?
 
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Have you tried aquarium water + salt? It gives by far the best hatching rate and maybe it helps with your problem.
Do you aerate the water enough?
 
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Have you tried aquarium water + salt? It gives by far the best hatching rate and maybe it helps with your problem.
Do you aerate the water enough?
Agree with this.
I use these simple hatcheries, no heat, or aeration required
When I start a new batch I use water change water from tanks, add salt, and eggs.
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I starrt a new batch every 24 to 48 hours using just enough eggs to feed fry over those couple days.
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Once the oldest the batch seems depleted, I toss what's left in an old preform out on the lawn, with some extra old water change water and salt, and a week or so its full of adults
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Being so shallow, these old preforms grow algae/green water rather quickly the artemia feed on
I'm always amazed that even after it seems used up, there are plenty of shrimp, and eggs that haven't yet hatched.
Once salted, only water evaporates so all that needs to be added is a couple gallons of old aquarium water to keep them going, no extra salt.
 
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Yeah, that sounds like you're not using any salt in the water, they need pretty high salinity as hinted by their name. Or maybe you just didn't mention it? I found them fairly easy to raise to adulthood, every bucket I used would be full of ones that escaped catching them when babies.
 
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