Growing Brine Shrimp (fast food)

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T

Twicksisted

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 13, 2007
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London, UK
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I want to setup a small tank as a nursery for growing and breeding a constant supply of brine shrimp to use as live food for my fish.
They are really cheap to buy, but I would like to try my hand at growing my own supply for special treats for my fishes. I have never kept Brine or Saltwater tanks before (only freshwater tropical).
Can anyone give me any info on what I'll need to set this up.

I have the following so far that I can use for this:

60cm X30cm X30cm tank... has a lid and light.
Airpump / Airstone
300Watt Heater (gonna have to get a small 50W or 100w as this will probably cook the tank)

Anyone got experience with growing / breeding brine shrimp?

What salt do I buy?
How much do I use?
Temperature?
Filtration? (UG filter so to not suck the fry into the mechanical filter?)
What do they eat?
Can I breed them and have fry and older shrimps in the same tank or must they be seperated when they hatch?
What is their breeding cycle like?

Any help will be greatly appreciated :)
 
The cheapest to start might be buying a vial of 'eggs'. They'll come with instructions on what to do, and you won't need to use that much of the vial so you get several tries if you don't get a breeding population goin

I was thinking of doing the same thing within a planted tank, but not sure about what effects brine shrimp have on plants
 
just use sponge filters for like fry tanks and what not
around 78 degrees i think
 
I bought a vial of eggs of ebay for like 5 bucks. They are really easy to hatch, but I have had no luck keeping them alive. I hatch them in an inverted 2 liter bottle hooked to an air pump, then after they hatch, I move them to a full 10 gallon with 2 airlines to churn the water. I feed them yeast solution till the water is just a little cloudy as recommended. But have had no luck at keeping them alive for more than about 3 days. If anyone has been able to sucessfully grow these things out, I too would love to hear how you do it.
 
vials of eggs are about $5 from any pet shop, ebay isn't necessary.
I actually lost my vial without ever being able to try any. but when i took a gander recently at the instructions, it seemed to be a little tedious. i will probably just buy a bag of live brine shrimp from a shop and start with that.
 
Its easy to hatch baby brine shrimps (napulli). I hatched a few batches to feed my convict fries. Temp should be around 80~84 degrees. According to the instructions...regular Aquarium salt is required and a pH of 8.0.

The trick is to keep them alive long enough to grow to full size which I haven't done nor tried. Do a google search...there's some good info out there and setups for growing adult brine shrimps. :D

Good luck!
 
Thanks for thre info so far...
I think i might just cut corners a bit and get some adults from the shop... then see if they breed..

Most of the ones ive used to feed my fish with, have had eggs clamped under their tails..so i think that it should be easy to breed them... just getting the salinity / temps / feeding & filtration is gonna be tricky i presume.

:)
 
Yeah, I need to breed brine shrimp if I want to breed bettas. I hope my lfs has brine shrimp eggs. If not.....I will be mad.
 
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