Anyone have any experience with hatching brine shrimp? Is there such a thing as old eggs and it will never hatch? well, recently I tried to hatch some and none hatch. I know the eggs has been in its original package for at least 8 years and never opened. I thought they stay dormant until they get wet with brine solutions, correct?
I use 2 table spoon of seasalt and a pinch of arm and hammer baking soda in a cut top 2 litter bottle at 80 degrees F; with 1 tbs of eggs. I saw on youtube that you’re suppose to use aquarium salt, but I also saw others saying that you can use seasalt or idize salt as well.
I used a light, and two spoonfuls of reef crystals from what I remember. It’s been a couple years since I hatched them but I didn’t have too many issues. Most problems I had was not all of them hatching. Try a light next time in addition to everything else you did. Let it run for 24hrs.
A, Brine Shrimp cysts come in various grades, based on their hatch out rate. the best, most expensive grade gives a 90% plus hatch rate, down to economy grade at about 65% when they are fresh. Yes, time and dry storage will degrade them. I always kept mine in the fridge. keep the one pound can seal in there… and a couple ounces of them in a small bottle for daily use. that way i wasnt opening the big can everyday and letting moisture in or out. they can keep a year or more that way. on the shelf, they probably degrade much faster.
and check the articles and online sources too for info.
I used a 2 liter soda bottle hatcher placed in a 5 gallon bucket in case of a leak, and hung a orange plastic shop light with a 60 watt incandescent bulb in the bucket near the hatcher for light and some warmth. worked pretty good. but you have to carfully separate the hatched shrimp at the bottom from cyst hulls that should float on the surface. if the SHs eat hulls, it plugs up their guts.
Thanks for the info Ken. I guess I must have gotten the cheap eggs or its been sitting on the shelf for a long time. Guess I’ll have to invest in some better premium eggs.
I have 6 2 liter bottle sitting in 20g tank with water 3/4 up the bottle. A small pump and a heater in the tank to keep the water at 80 degrees. Also, light above the tank.
I’ll make sure not to get any hull in the tank for the Seahorses.
Thats a great idea. You can do many different cultures with one heater. it looks like she is using FW aquarium salt, which is basically table salt, and epsoms salt, i believe. which is why she has to add buffer. if you use reef salt, none needed. its got everything.
I have several packs that are a few years old too,haven’t had any luck hatching them. However I do seem to have thousands of live mysis everywhere so I gave up on the brine
mysis would be much better for sea horses. it takes a whole lot o brine shrimp napoli to fill a horse. I do believe you can set up a small mysis breeding tank. they just eat either flake, or green flake / pellets or detritis. so a ten gallon tank with some coarse gravel and rubble rock and a sponge filter or bio wheel filter, and heater ought to do it. just seed it with a handfull of mysis/ gramara shrimp and feed them and let them breed. or pods as we call them. found this info
Cool, got some reading to do. Thanks Ken. I’m planning on getting some from Jason. maybe I’ll just turn that 20g brine shrimp hatchery into mysis and pods breeding/grow out thank.
Let us know how mysis breeding goes. Would love see a small scale one like that. I takled with the guy who ran the NJ aquarium mysis/brine/phyto/etc setup. Freakin’ huge!!!
May sound dumb but if you don’t have one, get yourself a baby brine net, don’t use the coffee strainer thing, you’ll lose too much with that.
I used to use the old school San Francisco brand stuff that came in a pre-salted pack. That stuff always hatched out for me. I’ve also done it with mixing you’re own water up and stuff - one thing I used to do was add a little baking soda to keep the pH up.
