Brine Shrimp

Hi all,

Thinking about trying to grow Brine Shrimp to adulthood for feeding my fish. Anyone doing this already? Anyone got any tips or tricks?

Thanks,
Stephen.

The best tip I can give is that the effort needed is much greater than the benefit from doing it.

You would need to have some good lighting around the culture vessel to get plenty of green stuff growing (not just algae but other microorganisms).
I also found that increasing the salinity slowly helps. You would also need the aeration maintained.

On a small scale, don't expect to get a good yield of adults.

ian

Thanks guys going to try it out and see what happens.

Stephen,
You could start with a pack of already hatched prime shrimp and try to grow then to adult.
Seahorse are selling live prime shrimp at one euro a pack.

Just a suggestion.
Let us know how you get on anyway.

Greg

I made a brine shrimp hatchery and have some Great Salt Lake brine shrimp artemia eggs which i got on ebay, will try it at the weekend. Will keep you posted.

Stephen.

JohnH wrote:

Yes - please do, Stephen.
I, for one, am very interested.

John

Will do john.

With determination, you could come up with an easy and effective way to raise them that makes it economically viable.

Whichever way, do an diary for here.

ian

Hi Stephen,
Funny enough I was gonna start this thread tonight, as my 1st hatch occurred on Monday, do you mind if I join onto your thread? We could show 2 completly different ways of going about this.

Pat.

mech1 wrote:

Hi Stephen,
Funny enough I was gonna start this thread tonight, as my 1st hatch occurred on Monday, do you mind if I join onto your thread? We could show 2 completly different ways of going about this.

Pat.

No probs Pat, would be interested in see who you are doing it.

Stephen.

Set this up this morning. Ended up buying a hatchery kit on ebay which seems to work well. I didnt want to spend much on this so i used an old water drum i found in the shed just cut the top off it. I had a spare light from my shrimp tank and will leave it on for about 12 hours. I used 10g of table salt and 10g of epson salts per liter and a few drops of prime. Temp is about 27 and PH is about 7.7. Lets see what happens!

Did you take a specific gravity reading?

I make my salt mix up by measuring the specific gravity....as I'm too lazy to count tablespoons or measure the water. !!

My hatchery (for the eggs) uses old coke bottles side by side and a large powerful multi-LED lamp (a few euro from Lidl) aimed at the side.
Each bottle has two holes in the bottle-top; the air goes into one bottle (with air line below the water), and the second hole has an airline just below the cap which then leads into the next bottle to aerate the water and so on and so forth....and the final air outlet is then linked to a fish tank to make the best use of the single air pump (cheap-skate as I am).

ian

igmillichip wrote:

Did you take a specific gravity reading?

I make my salt mix up by measuring the specific gravity....as I'm too lazy to count tablespoons or measure the water. !!

My hatchery (for the eggs) uses old coke bottles side by side and a large powerful multi-LED lamp (a few euro from Lidl) aimed at the side.
Each bottle has two holes in the bottle-top; the air goes into one bottle (with air line below the water), and the second hole has an airline just below the cap which then leads into the next bottle to aerate the water and so on and so forth....and the final air outlet is then linked to a fish tank to make the best use of the single air pump (cheap-skate as I am).

ian

Im new to the whole salty world and dont have a hydrometer so i justed used the recipe in Johns link. I did make a hatchery very similar to yours but it was "accidentally" put in the bin by the missis! She said it look like rubbish so she f**ked it in the bin! So i just bought one! Might get a hydrometer today dont think they are expensive?

Stephen

you don't need a super accurate one for brine shrimp.
I use a cheap one I bought for about 3 or 4 euro.

....and the missus and what they call junk.....that is another thread for dealing with 'em.


ian

igmillichip wrote:

you don't need a super accurate one for brine shrimp.
I use a cheap one I bought for about 3 or 4 euro.

....and the missus and what they call junk.....that is another thread for dealing with 'em.


ian

Cool will see if i can pick one up today. In fairness to the missis it did look like a home made breast pump!

Stephen.

Hicker12 wrote:

In fairness to the missis it did look like a home made breast pump!

Stephen.

Well, in fairness to your missus- she may have worried that if the brine shrimp fail and you were still looking for a cheap alternative, nutritious, fresh food source....

After all, we do go to quite extreme lenghts to feed our charges!

LoB

Xaribdis wrote:

Hicker12 wrote:

In fairness to the missis it did look like a home made breast pump!

Stephen.

Well, in fairness to your missus- she may have worried that if the brine shrimp fail and you were still looking for a cheap alternative, nutritious, fresh food source....

After all, we do go to quite extreme lenghts to feed our charges!

LoB

LOL good idea! She could feed a 500l tank!

Stephen.

Nice setup for them

Any idea how you are going to collect them?

Sean

BlueRam wrote:

Nice setup for them

Any idea how you are going to collect them?

Sean

Hoping they will be big enough to catch in a normal fish net or maybe some filter floss will will do the job.

Stephen

Yeah that would work id say if im not mistaken the hatched shells will float to the top

So adding a open and close value to the bottom off the drum might be a good idea to collect the brine shrimp but that is just an idea im sure you dont have to do this that you can catch them from the top with a net

Cant wait to see how you get on with it


Sean

BlueRam wrote:

Yeah that would work id say if im not mistaken the hatched shells will float to the top

So adding a open and close value to the bottom off the drum might be a good idea to collect the brine shrimp but that is just an idea im sure you dont have to do this that you can catch them from the top with a net

Cant wait to see how you get on with it


Sean

Yeah looking forward to seeing what happens, Not sure what to feed them some say spirulina and some say yeast. Dont even know where i would get spirulina.

Stephen

You can get spirulina powder in any health shop i was only looking at it the other day a small 200g tub for 12.75 or a bigger one 500g for 26.30 or something like that

I sure would last you a while though as you would only need to us a pinch at a time

Sean

BlueRam wrote:

You can get spirulina powder in any health shop i was only looking at it the other day a small 200g tub for 12.75 or a bigger one 500g for 26.30 or something like that

I sure would last you a while though as you would only need to us a pinch at a time

Sean

Ok cool thanks Sean.

Stephen.

No worries mate any time please keep us posted on how you get on with them

Sean

Will do Sean, thanks again.

Stephen.

Hicker12 wrote:

igmillichip wrote:

you don't need a super accurate one for brine shrimp.
I use a cheap one I bought for about 3 or 4 euro.

....and the missus and what they call junk.....that is another thread for dealing with 'em.


ian

Cool will see if i can pick one up today. In fairness to the missis it did look like a home made breast pump!

Stephen.

How did she think it was a home made breast pump?

I've never seen a home-made one before.

Are there some other DIY jobs you're not telling us about.

igmillichip wrote:

Hicker12 wrote:

igmillichip wrote:

you don't need a super accurate one for brine shrimp.
I use a cheap one I bought for about 3 or 4 euro.

....and the missus and what they call junk.....that is another thread for dealing with 'em.


ian

Cool will see if i can pick one up today. In fairness to the missis it did look like a home made breast pump!

Stephen.

How did she think it was a home made breast pump?

I've never seen a home-made one before.

Are there some other DIY jobs you're not telling us about.

lol Ian, sure anything to save a euro!

Stephen.

I won't go into details on my DIY attempts.

....and before this goes to the sewers.....back to brine shrimps.

There was a comment about shells I saw above somewhere (I can't find it now).

If there is a wait until the fresh hatched have fully hatch, then the shells should float upwards.

If a strong lamp is placed near the bottom of the container, the babies will accumulate there and be easy to siphon off with air-tubing.
Then transfer the young to growing-on water (eg the old water but well filtered).

You could attempt to de-shell the eggs before hatching.....a little tricky on small numbers, but worth an experiment to get it right.

The shellless shrimps in a bottle do costs a small fortunate compared to the dry eggs.

ian