BRINE SHRIMP for Livebreares

[Abed]

Hey ...
for some reason i felt like buying brine shrimp eggs from some ebay store. I receieved them today and then found out that i know nothing about them !!! ... i do have platies, mollies, snails, and red cherry shrimp in my two tanks. ..

If it possible to guide me in the process of hatching these guys and feeeding them to the fish... but without using any fancy equipment like hatcheries n etc!! can't afford it right now, saving for my summer trip !! ::D: ....

Thank you.

[Katalyst]

http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2068


Here's a great article written by Mykiss that should help you out. :wink:

[Abed]

Thanks for the quick reply ... but that article is confuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing !!! :eek:

[PintoHawk]

I liked that article, thanks Melody and Mykiss. That explained things in a very straightforward way, much better than alot of the stuff I have read online. :)

[Melody]

You're welcome, although all I did is admire and move...lol...we'll have to get after him for pictures.:yes: I find it a very easy read too but I've done it before.

Here are some DIY Brine Shrimp Hatcheries with pictures. One with a bottle, one with a jar:

http://fightingfish.com.au/article.php?id=41
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_brineshrimp_hatchery.php

A quick Google will net you lots of variations & articles if you need more info.

[hp10BII]

Don't know where you're located, some people order adult brine shrimp and gut load them with vitamins and other goodies before feeding their fish. One local seahorse breeder constantly has surplus brine shrimp that he can't use, something like $3 for a bag and you get over a 1000 adult brine shrimp per.

[PintoHawk]

This might be a dumb question (*ducks Melody's backhand*) but could a person keep adult brine shrimp in a freshwater tank? And could a person simply make them happy/content so that they breed and produce babies that the fish could eat? Or would the fish eat the adult shrimp before they ever had a chance to have baby shrimps?

[KnaveTO]

Brine Shrimp require salt water to live in, therefore they could not be kept in freshwater aquaria. Furthermore as they are a source of food if they were kept in a tank with brackish or saltwater fish they would soon be completely eaten up.

[PintoHawk]

I figured as much, about them being eaten. Thank you! :)

[Melody]

We don't have dumb questions in this forum. None. Not even one... well, maybe "Will you be getting more fish?", but that's it.

Gammarus are a freshwater feeder shrimp that you can breed easily. They're small so they work well for Livebearers. They're on the auction occasionally from Jay and CanadianAquatics.com sells cultures - both ship:smile: .

[firestorm]

I tank I service had brine shrimp breeding in it. It was a marine tank of course, kept the specific gravity at around 23-25. We fed them frozen brine shrimp when we serviced the tank, there must have been some eggs that survived and hatched. It was pretty cool of course. Though to start an actual culture it may take a little more. I just picked up a kit from petland, in it comes a little hatchery box and 3 packages of brine shrimp eggs with the salt. There were thousands of little eggs. But I think this unit is only for raising baby brine.
:yes:

[Melody]

I didn't know eggs survived sterilization & freezing - determined little buggers aren't they? :yes:

I have heard that the BBS in kits aren't intended to be grown to adulthood, but I've never quite figured out why. There's a great article about growing Brine Shrimp to adult size here (http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Berg_Growing_Shrimp.html). We'd love to follow along with you if you have time to post about the experience. :yes: Good luck!

[firestorm]

Determined is what they must have been. Strangely enough it has only happenend in this one tank.

My little hatchery is starting to work so far. I saw a few little swimmers in the jar, and will harvest them tonight when there are a little more. I don't need them to grow to adulthood, and I don't think this harvester would work for that anyhow. It is the shrimpery, you can take a look on this page http://www.sfbb.com/eggs.asp#.

I can always get a different hatchery that will raise them to adulthood, my boss has the really good hatcheries at the shop we get our equip and supplies from. I can always ask to borrow one or I can probably get a better deal on one through him. It pays to work with aquariums for a living :yes:

[Osprey]

I have heard that the BBS in kits aren't intended to be grown to adulthood, but I've never quite figured out why.
It's because the adults have no nutritional value. They're just fiber, really, although most fish love them and will eat them like candy. In order to be a worthwhile food, BBS shouldn't be more than 24 hours old- so that they'll still have a nice, meaty yolk sack attached. Mmm, mmm good!

[CACAdmin]

Thanks. I han't realized that... definitely makes sense.

[firestorm]

Thanks for that info. I never knew that either. The guys I am feeding are definitely less than 24hrs old. I have been emptying the little container containing the hatched shrimp, into both fry tanks 2x a day. At first they seemed a little unaware of what to do with them. But when those fry tasted that BBS for the first time, they gobbled them up like nothing. Now they go full force for them, it's very cool to watch :yes:

[GaryofMontreal]

There was a guy outside of Montreal who started raising brine shrimp, taking them through their life cycle, collecting cysts and going through it again. It took a lot of attention to water quality and such, but he got so into it he stopped feeding them to his fish, and then got rid of the fish altogether and just kept artemia.
A project a lot of killie guys try is harvesting wild daphnia (or buying laboratory species) and maintaining daphnia cultures for their fish. It's work as well, but provides a lot of food. I've done it, but only with middling success. I had one tank where the killies were picky eaters, and a daphnia culture was able to get established in the plants, and live and reproduce alongside their predators for about six months.

[firestorm]

That's an interesting concept. I don't think I would ever get rid of my fish just for BS though :laugh:. I wouldn't take BS all the way through their life cycle either, probably just hatch the eggs and let them grow to adult hood to help condition some of my fish for breeding. I like to do some things the easy way, and let others do the hard stuff for me :spinny:

[Maritess]

One local seahorse breeder constantly has surplus brine shrimp that he can't use, something like $3 for a bag and you get over a 1000 adult brine shrimp per.

I would like to give my fish the occasional treat (brine shrimp); is this breeder still around? If so, how would I contact him, to inquire about getting a bag?

[Melody]

It's because the adults have no nutritional value. They're just fiber, really, although most fish love them and will eat them like candy. In order to be a worthwhile food, BBS shouldn't be more than 24 hours old- so that they'll still have a nice, meaty yolk sack attached. Mmm, mmm good!

Absolutely, I've just never figured out why the eggs are marked like that. They make it sound like successful adults aren't as much of a possibility with the eggs - like they aren't intended to grow to adult size.

Gutloading makes them a more feasible option from the nutrition perspective. They do offer some nutrition and roughage on their own, but I wouldn't bother filling a fish tummy with them unless they were fortified/gutloaded.

[mollybawn]

I took it in my head one day to buy one of those little "sea monkey" hatcheries. I had it for a few months and once the miniature brine shrimp looked big enough, like they mnight stand a fighting chance, I dropped them into my tank with my neon tetras, just to see what would happen...

What a show!! My docile, gentle little tetras became vicious predators and ripped the little shrimp into bits and gobbled them all up. They reminded me of little tiny piranha. Which makes sense because I was informed after the fact that they are actually distantly related.

The cool thing about it was that you can empty the hatchery, let it dry out, refil it and whatever dormant eggs were left from the first time around hatched. You can do this up to 3 times with each one. I never made it a habit, just that one time. But my fishies loved them! :)

[CACAdmin]

I'll bet your fish thought they were being fed a feast for a king.