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Brine shrimp

P

PMolan

This question probably has been asked 1,000,000 times but I am up to that stage now. I am interested in growing brine shrimp. I wanted to populate my 100 gal fuge with baby brine shrimp so they can multiply like pods. I was looking into hatch systems and found this http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produ...ll&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&N=2004&Nty=1

I know someone must have done something like this in the past. My goal is to hook up the hatchery to the sump and to create babies into the fuge every 2 days until my egg supply runs out. Is this goal feasable? Will the brine live in the fuge? I am planning to have 30-50% of my raw tank water run directly to it. Will this be enough nutrients for them? I was just wondering about other peoples experiences before I potentially pollute my tank. Thanks
 
P

PMolan

Or at the very least to have a hatchery that uses tank water that when the eggs hatch they go to the sump area and get sucked in the return pump to the tank. This way every 2 days I would add new eggs and clean out the shells
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Plankton is much smaller than brine shrimp. They serve two different purposes in the aquarium as well. Certain of your animals will feed on the smaller size food others prefer brine or larger foods.
 
M

mladencovic

I am not sure if we all understood what exactly you were asking. If you were asking how to HATCH brine shrimp from eggs that you can buy in any pet shop, then it is trivial. Add eggs to salt water or if you bought SF mix, then to fresh water, put that in any soda bottle, add air tube and bubble (big, no air stone) and light bulb and in 2-3 days you have nauptils and baby brine shrimp ready for fish. Very important, DO NOT send the whole thing to the tank, rather just life BS, because their egg shells will be swallowed by fish but will not be digested and can clog their digestive tract. That is why you will see those designs where they are straining the BS down, or in direction of light because egg shells will float at the top.

So ALL of those sites talk only about the hatching.

On the other hand, if you were talking about CULTIVATING them - that is their full life cycle, I am not sure that you will have luck there. I have not heard of anyone doing it on a small scale. Remember, they require completely different environment then reef tanks (different salinity, temp etc.) they are often fed on a yeast, etc. Now, if you try to cultivate, that would definitively be a nice experiment, that we all will be interested in hearing about.

Finally, many web sites discourage using brine shrimps for feeding specially in reef tanks. They are of no use to most corals because of their size (too large for most polyps), except for some LPS and anemones or softies with larger polyps/tentacles. And their nutrient content is supposed to be very poor - mostly fats, not much protens. Mysid shrimps are considered far better on that account. There is web site that actually sells culture of mysid shrimps so you can cultivate them, though it seems a bit pricey for my taste.
 
V

Volitan

The brine won't live in a fuge require much more salt. You can grow them fairly easy but it becomes a pain
temp.s have to be exact to hatch the egg casings make quite a mess after the time and money its cheaper to buy a box of live ones already hatched and keep them alive to feed.check out
livebrineshrimp.com he has brine, m.shrimp,marine feeders,
pods, and plankton cultures they ship overnight. its alot easier.
Al
 
P

PMolan

Ok that was what I was looking for.. Hatching them seems pretty easy. I just wanted to know if they could be kept alive in the fuge like pods.
 
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