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Trying and failing to hatch small batches of brine shrimp. What am I doing wrong?


Kirsten
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I know, probably impossible to tell over the internet, but I'm 0 for 2 for trying to hatch brine shrimp in the ziss and I must be doing something wrong. I've tried to do everything right, watched Cory's video at least a dozen times, and I get only like 25% hatch rate after 48 hours, with tons of empty salt water and eggs.

I only have 6 small-ish tanks (36g or less), but I like to give them the best, so I've only been trying to hatch a teaspoon or two of eggs at a time. Is that part of my problem? Should I try brewing up a super full batch of like 2 tbs of BBS eggs?

I even tried filling up the tumbler only half way, giving it just 1 tbs salt, to try to concentrate them more, and the water just turned cloudy and I had no better luck than a full tumbler.

I have the air tube hooked up to a nano pump, dialed into a couple bubbles per second, I have a 5w heater I use only for BBS hatching which I'm sure to keep below the water line. I don't use a dedicated lamp or light source til I think it's ready to harvest, then I shine an old nano aquarium light on the bottom portion.

But for the whole time they're incubating, I seem to get a lot of eggs and salt sitting on the bottom, no matter how much I stir. Is that also part of the problem?

I also notice that, even though I have a municipal water supply, the chlorine level's pretty close to 0 out of the tap.

Any tips for hatching out small batches of BBS? Or larger batches and saving them?

In the meantime, I'm just ordering a bunch of instant BBS jars.

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pictures of your setup helps. What is the temp at the coldest part of the night? I use a light 24/7 when hatching eggs. Are you using marine salt or just aquarium salt?

I would do 2 tablespoons of marine salt. 2 liters of water. 1 teaspoon of eggs.

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4 minutes ago, Cory said:

pictures of your setup helps. What is the temp at the coldest part of the night? I use a light 24/7 when hatching eggs. Are you using marine salt or just aquarium salt?

I would do 2 tablespoons of marine salt. 2 liters of water. 1 teaspoon of eggs.

Sure! I'll post pics next time I run it. It has been getting pretty cold at night, probably down to at least 64, maybe lower. Maybe my heater isn't keeping up?

Yup, Fritz Marine salt.

Good to know about the light, too! I'll try that.

Edited by Kirsten
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The only way to know if your heater is keeping up, is by checking when it's at it's coldest. maybe 4 or 5am? Brine shrimp is A+B +C +D = Brine shrimp. If you aren't getting your brine shrimp, one of your parameters is wrong for hatching essentially. Study each one, and you'll find it.

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I put a 50w halogen in a reflector at a distance from my hatchery (in the basement) and it keeps the water between 78-80. I also put a small amount of baking soda in the water to raise the ph. Idk if that hurts/helps but my hatch rates have been good so I keep going with it. 

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13 minutes ago, Nate s said:

I put a 50w halogen in a reflector at a distance from my hatchery (in the basement) and it keeps the water between 78-80. I also put a small amount of baking soda in the water to raise the ph. Idk if that hurts/helps but my hatch rates have been good so I keep going with it. 

Interesting! My tap waters pretty soft and close to neutral, so I'm a little leery of messing with it too much other than the salt. But I do have a grow light bulb in a clamp-on shop lamp that gets pretty warm. Maybe I'll try that at a small distance away. 

Now the trick will be to block the light from growing algae in the tanks nearby!

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Everybody has a different way of doing this. It's kind of like building a lightsaber. Once you've got your method, you're really moving up a level. While I'm always eager to learn from others . . . we've got a little system that works. I'll share -- but please don't take this as a "this is how you do it!" rant. I'm in awe of how others go about it.

We hatch ours inside a box we made with an LED desk light on 24 / 7. So room temp, plus LED light . . . not too hot . . . probably 74-degrees max.

We hatch 1-liter at a time.

Process is (exactly) as follows:

(1) Take a small coffee mug, and fill it with HOT tap water

(2) Measure in 3x heaping teaspoons of API Aquarium Salt

(3) Stir until as much as possible is dissolved into the hot water in the mug (NOTE: Otherwise, salt may not properly dissolve)

(4) Pour that salty hot water into the hatchery

(5) Fill up the rest of the (1-liter) hatchery with COLD tap water

(6) Scoop 2x 1/2-teaspoons of Brine Shrimp Eggs (i.e. 1x heaping teaspoon) into the hatchery

(7) Affix the bubbler to a rapid boil of bubbles

(8) Leave in the hatchery box with LED light on for 36 hrs

(9) Remove bubbler

(10) Fill a Specimen Container up with clean, tepid tap water

(11) Pour out hatchery over a Shrimp net or Coffee Filter, and dump into the fresh specimen container

(12) Set by a light and allow egg shells and shrimp to separate

(13) Use a syringe to draw BBS out of the fresh water to feed fry

This process is a bit tedious. We dislike getting too much salt into _some_ of our tanks, because that stays in the water, and can increase conductivity for very fragile fry. But with other tanks, it's fien to just serve BBS straight from the hatchery. 

Here is a very short video showing our little DIY box. Notice that it's plastered with salt. This is why we built a box. Otherwise, salt get everywhere over time...

 

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I have (typically) great luck with water straight from the tap, one tablespoon of marine salt per liter of water, and my hatching vats halfway submerged in a 2.5 gallon aquarium heated to 82 with a small adjustable heater. Constant illumination from an LED desk lamp.

I still have the occasional bad hatch but Dean just mentioned something really interesting in one of the last videos. He suggested that excessive aeration can cause the nauplii to collide with each other and break off limbs (which would kill them). I never considered it since instructions usually recommend vigorous aeration but I think there might be something to it. I upgraded to a stronger air pump at my hatching station and have had more bad hatches since then. 

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20 hours ago, Fish Folk said:

Everybody has a different way of doing this. It's kind of like building a lightsaber. Once you've got your method, you're really moving up a level. While I'm always eager to learn from others . . . we've got a little system that works. I'll share -- but please don't take this as a "this is how you do it!" rant. I'm in awe of how others go about it.

We hatch ours inside a box we made with an LED desk light on 24 / 7. So room temp, plus LED light . . . not too hot . . . probably 74-degrees max.

We hatch 1-liter at a time.

Process is (exactly) as follows:

(1) Take a small coffee mug, and fill it with HOT tap water

(2) Measure in 3x heaping teaspoons of API Aquarium Salt

(3) Stir until as much as possible is dissolved into the hot water in the mug (NOTE: Otherwise, salt may not properly dissolve)

(4) Pour that salty hot water into the hatchery

(5) Fill up the rest of the (1-liter) hatchery with COLD tap water

(6) Scoop 2x 1/2-teaspoons of Brine Shrimp Eggs (i.e. 1x heaping teaspoon) into the hatchery

(7) Affix the bubbler to a rapid boil of bubbles

(8) Leave in the hatchery box with LED light on for 36 hrs

(9) Remove bubbler

(10) Fill a Specimen Container up with clean, tepid tap water

(11) Pour out hatchery over a Shrimp net or Coffee Filter, and dump into the fresh specimen container

(12) Set by a light and allow egg shells and shrimp to separate

(13) Use a syringe to draw BBS out of the fresh water to feed fry

This process is a bit tedious. We dislike getting too much salt into _some_ of our tanks, because that stays in the water, and can increase conductivity for very fragile fry. But with other tanks, it's fien to just serve BBS straight from the hatchery. 

Here is a very short video showing our little DIY box. Notice that it's plastered with salt. This is why we built a box. Otherwise, salt get everywhere over time...

 

This is incredible! I love the idea of dissolving the salt first, building a lightbox for the hatchery, using a bit more aeration, and pouring into a net or coffee filter. I don't mind a little salt in my tanks, but with the small amounts of shrimp I'm hatching, I feel like I'd end up dumping a lot of empty brine in there.

Next big question I've been afraid to ask: running a hatchery constantly will really tear through my marine salt supply. Is it possible to reuse the salt water, assuming I can filter out the bbs and unhatched eggs?

Edited by Kirsten
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48 minutes ago, Kirsten said:

This is incredible! I love the idea of dissolving the salt first, building a lightbox for the hatchery, using a bit more aeration, and pouring into a net or coffee filter. I don't mind a little salt in my tanks, but with the small amounts of shrimp I'm hatching, I feel like I'd end up dumping a lot of empty brine in there.

Next big question I've been afraid to ask: running a hatchery constantly will really tear through my marine salt supply. Is it possible to resume the salt water, assuming I can filter out the bbs and unhatched eggs?

Never thought of that... hmm... probably! If you buy _straight_ rock salt (no added chemicals) from a larger hardware store or a tractor supply shop, I’ve heard you can use that too. It’s VERY cheap.

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The left over salt water will be fouled. It sounds like you need stronger airflow and/or a tube that reaches all the way to the bottom of the hatchery cone.

I use 2 ziss blenders. For small batches I do 1 liter 1 table spoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon eggs. I harvest and rinse using a 120 micron sieve. I do not put the hatchery water in my tanks.

I recently changed over to water softener salt pellets with no negative effects. 8 bucks for 50 pounds!

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I had a bunch of build up on the bottom of my hatchery then I added a 1 in piece of airline to extend the stiff internal airline to reach the bottom of my hatchery not sure if that will help your hatch rate but made me “feel” like I was doing a better job

 

i also am doing small hatches I have been doing half a teaspoon. 

Edited by Tinyfellows
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8 minutes ago, Tinyfellows said:

I had a bunch of build up on the bottom of my hatchery then I added a 1 in piece of airline to extend the stiff internal airline to reach the bottom of my hatchery not sure if that will help your hatch rate but made me “feel” like I was doing a better job

 

i also am doing small hatches I have been doing half a teaspoon. 

Yeah I wonder if that's part of my problem. At first I used the included airstone (at least I think that's what it is. It's clear but it fits at the end of the tube and makes bubbles) and had to cut the tubing down a little to make it fit when I attached the flexible airline at the top. Then I had a bad hatch so I watched the video again and saw Cory didn't use the airstone, so I removed it, and still had a bad hatch. So maybe I should reattach it to help aerate and keep sediment from building up at the bottom.

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I never use marine salt or any other fancy expensive salts. Just straight up salt from the grocery store without any iodine added. Its fine if there are any additives to prevent chunks.

Small bags of marine salt are usually relatively expensive. So if you're planning to continuously hatch a lot of brine shrimp and you're willing to stick to marine salt, see if you can buy it in bigger bags.

If your tap water is extremely soft it might dissolve the egg shells causing them to not hatch properly. Some people claim chlorine and chloramine in tap water affect the hatch rate, though personally I dont have any experience with that.

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Not an expert by far. But when I had a lot of salt/unhatched brineshrimp, I had to lower the amount of salt used. I now use 22 grams on 2 liters of water. I just use regular salt from the grocery store without iodine. I don't light 24/7, but only turn it off during the night. I use a 5 watt heater in the Ziss. I get pretty steady results now after 36 hours.

 

Edited to add;

I put some of the "debris" under the microscope. And could actually see them having trouble getting out of the egg (this one was really moving to try and get clear). I then read that that can be caused with an too high salt content and thus lowered the amount of salt I used. 

 

WhatsApp Image 2021-05-17 at 18.28.22.jpeg

Edited by Marlies
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