Brine Shrimp

[SomethingFishy]

I recently bought a brine shrip hatchery o as an impule buy at my LFS. It is difficult to get live brine shrimp regularly so I thougt I would grow my own.

I am not sure if I am doing it correctly. The little suckers hatch and swim up to the cup but they are REALLY small and after a day or so they are dead at the bottom of the cup. While the fish will eat these tiny things I was hoping for larger shrimps like you get from the frozen packages.

Any suggestions??

 

[adamj]

can you give anymore information on the package itself? what did it include, what directions etc.

 

[Slacker]

fish will eat the nepolii (sp?) which are the brine babies, but not all will. Usually its baby livebearers that eat them. Man i wish i had what you have, my babies would be eating like kings.

 

[dana307]

I have the same problem. Can't even tell if the eggs are hatched because they are so small. The hatchery is a black box with a small cup on the top. Directions say to add cool water, put in a warm place. I have also read to add salt and baking soda but did not try that on the first attempt. The eggs are brine eggs - I have both a mix which has its own salt and straight up eggs only. Any ideas are welcome. I have a turtle and molly, swordtail tank that would really appreciate any advice.

 

[adamj]

get a small fish tank, heat lamp, sponge filter, marine salts and the add the eggs. As far as feeding them, we always use green algae water. good luck making that

 

[SomethingFishy]

Yes . . . mine is exactly as described above.

The fish will eat the tiny ones . . . I was just hoping to get the larger ones as well. I can only assume that the temp here is still too cold.

I will try some of those things mentioned above too.

 

[tramca]

Our toy shops sell kits to grow your own "sea monkeys".
You get a little tank with it....you empty the magic eggs in and wait.....woooooooo....they hatch into brineshrimp!
You get special sea monkey food and have to aeriate the water often.
It's good to watch them grow. We bought them for our kids a few years ago not knowing they were actually brineshrimp.
They grew quite big too....till the kids forgot to feed them.

Never mind.

 

[adamj]

usualy, you can go to a lfs that sells daphnia and get the algae water from them. Daphnia is in basicaly green water. Whenever i needed to feed the brine shrimp, i strained the daphnia out of a portion of daphnia, and poured the algae in with the brine. I did keep a heat light directly on the brine, with a sponge filter in the tank.

 

[dana307]

Sounds a bit complicated, no?

 

[adamj]

nah, its easy when you get down to the nitty gritty.

you need:
1 tank (5 gallon or so)
1 spong filter
1 aitpump + tubing + airstone
1 heat lamp
1 box of marine salt - brineshrimp are saltwater
1 hydrometer - measure the level of salinity in the tank
and of course water conditioner

wash rinse repeat hehe

the most complicated part is findind a lfs that sells daphnia to get the water needed to feed the brine shrimpys. course thats my method, some one else may have something a little different to add in.