May be a rediculas question but i gotta ask anyway my texas recently spawned and i jumped the gun Hatching out brine shrimp..Anyway my question being do you feed the brine? how long is the life cycle ? my wigglers are not free swimming yet still have the yolk sac so not feeding yet.I through some algae in with the brine figuring the would feed on it but can anybody steer me in the right direction .Should i just dump then and start a new batch or will they survive long enough to feed to the fry .....Thanks in advance ...
Hatching your own Brine shrimp?
- Thread starter HULON
- Start date
Any body come on i know it's probly elementery but i'm asken guys .I don't think there are dumb questions just questions so spit it out i can take it if you think it;s silly...
Taking care of BBS is a lot of work. I normally just feed the BBS to my fish once the BBS hatches so I don't have to worry about water changing it, shocking it or feeding it.
I take a small mason jar, add three teaspoons of salt, 1/2 tsp of eggs (feeding 7 tanks) and an aerator. I stick a piece of rigid tubing on the end of the airline in the jar so it's easier to siphon out the BBS.
I set it ontop of an aquarium lamp (hatch better in warmer water) around 9-10 at night and the next day around 9 the BBS is mostly hatched. After about 24 hours (they can go longer as well as hatch sooner) unplug the tubing and let the jar settle. Hatched eggs float to the top and unhatched eggs sink to the bottom. On top of the unhatched eggs will be tiny red BBS. Some will also be swimming. I hear the kind that isn't free swimming yet is much healthier, but I just siphon it all out leaving behind the unhatched eggs and egg shells. Then I dump the rest of the stuff from the jar in the sink, rinse it then start over. Rinse off the BBS in a fine mesh net too to remove the salt water.
It is much easier than it sounds. And it is pretty hard to mess up. Just make sure you have almost enough aeration to bubble water out of the jar, the more the better.
I take a small mason jar, add three teaspoons of salt, 1/2 tsp of eggs (feeding 7 tanks) and an aerator. I stick a piece of rigid tubing on the end of the airline in the jar so it's easier to siphon out the BBS.
I set it ontop of an aquarium lamp (hatch better in warmer water) around 9-10 at night and the next day around 9 the BBS is mostly hatched. After about 24 hours (they can go longer as well as hatch sooner) unplug the tubing and let the jar settle. Hatched eggs float to the top and unhatched eggs sink to the bottom. On top of the unhatched eggs will be tiny red BBS. Some will also be swimming. I hear the kind that isn't free swimming yet is much healthier, but I just siphon it all out leaving behind the unhatched eggs and egg shells. Then I dump the rest of the stuff from the jar in the sink, rinse it then start over. Rinse off the BBS in a fine mesh net too to remove the salt water.
It is much easier than it sounds. And it is pretty hard to mess up. Just make sure you have almost enough aeration to bubble water out of the jar, the more the better.
Hey thanks for the reply but i know all that part. My whole question was i kinda jumped the gun i have the live ones right now but the fry are not free swimming yet thus not redy to feed yet so am i better off just dumping the brine or is there anything i can feed them .That was my whole question i have them in a 1 gallon betta tank and i through a piece of algea in there to feed them if they eat it ..I just wanted to be more than ready if thats possable?Industrial;4529128; said:
HULON;4529144; said:
I have seen adult brine shrimp food at LFS before, but never food for baby brine shrimp.
My boss told me once when he was a teenager, he forgot about a jar of BBS he had and when he came back to it like two months later he had five giant brine shrimp left and everything else was gone. I say if you leave them in there, most will die but you will still have some.
If you wanted to keep it I would do a water change because the likely elevated ammonia in the water will eventually kill the BBS. I would recommend adding the same salinity salt water if you can since inverts cannot handle sudden fluctuations.
Personally though, I would focus more on hatching new brine shrimp than trying to salvage the old BBS.
I would rinse the salt water out of the live ones and freeze them on cellophane to feed them to your fry later and hatch another bunch for now
I might just throw some in the tank with the fry and start again maybe some will live long enough to be fed on...
If you leave them for more than a day or two there won't be any significant nutritional value left. They will burn it all up. Since you're not enriching or feeding the brine, it will basically be worthless to you after a couple days. I hatch new brine daily for fry. I always keep two bottles going at once so that I can alternate them (one in the morning, one in the evening).
I would toss out what you have and hatch more the day you see the fry start to go free-swimming. The fry can forage for a day while you wait on the eggs to hatch.
I would toss out what you have and hatch more the day you see the fry start to go free-swimming. The fry can forage for a day while you wait on the eggs to hatch.
Thanks for your input and it makes sense ..I guess the main reason nobody feeds the shrimp is not cost effective right.?ryansmith83;4530109; said: