Brine shrimp dying

[Rolo1990]

After my brine shrimp Hatch  in my brain shrimp hatchery after about two days they die  I’ve done about four batches and they won’t live past 2 to 3 days anybody have any suggestions.  After they hatch I’m putting them in a 5 gallon aquarium that has been cycle and I have a couple crabs and snails living in it right now I bought the eggs from here and also the hatchery from here ??? 

[BETTA999]

i had the same problem i also put them in a grow out tank and they crashed

[Allan B.]

This might be a dumb question, but are you keeping them in saltwater? I’ve never grown out brine shrimp (I always feed them to fish right away), but here’s some guidance from an info sheet about raising them from Carolina labs.

“Although most use brine shrimp as hatchlings, you can grow them to adulthood. To do so, transfer hatchlings to a clean container of saltwater. A shallow container with lots of surface area works best for large numbers of shrimp. If you must use a deeper container, adding an air stone helps aerate the water.”

“Brine shrimp are filter feeders and remove fine organic particles from the water as they swim. Unicellular algae and bacteria are natural foods. You can also powder fish food flakes and scatter the powder on the water's surface. A yeast suspension is also convenient food for shrimp. Make up a salt solution of the same salinity as the water in your shrimp culture. Stir in enough baker’s yeast to make the water appear "milky," and then store the solution in a refrigerator. Always agitate the solution before use to resuspend the yeast. Feed it to shrimp daily. Alternatively, crush grains of dry baker’s yeast on wax paper, then dust it on the surface of the brine shrimp culture. Avoid overfeeding. The water in the culture should not remain cloudy for more than 15 minutes after feeding.”

“Each week, draw off and discard about 1⁄4 of the culture water, then replace it with new saltwater. Brine shrimp tolerate crowding but may require additional containers as they grow.”

[gardenman]

The issue could be the volume of brine shrimp you're trying to raise. According to Diana Walstad an eighth of a teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs produces 60,000 brine shrimp. Now, you are probably hatching more than an eighth of a teaspoon of eggs at a time so scale up the number from there. If you add an enormous volume of living creatures to a tank, some will die. Those that die and those that live will be creating ammonia and even a cycled tank may not be able to handle the sudden influx of new life/death. The bacteria that were happily processing the waste from the other life in the tank may now find themselves more than a little overwhelmed.

The old school San Francisco Bay Brand brine shrimp dispensers (found in nearly every LFS in my youth) were designed to handle 2,000 shrimp at a time. Stores had systems in place to sort out how to only use 2,000 eggs. (Often using small measuring tools then putting the relatively small quantity of eggs into a piece of creased paper and further dividing it down to get the "right" number of eggs for the hatchery/grow-out system. If I was guessing, I'd say you're overwhelming the tank by trying to raise too many baby brine shrimp at once. Some are dying right away, others are living but may not be able to compete for the food available and starve. And before long things have spiraled out of hand and all of the baby shrimp crash and die. You may find more success if you move what seems like an absurdly small amount of shrimp to the grow-out tank.

[KittenFishMom]

I feed mine Spirulina powder, use a heater, an air hose, saltwater made with water taken from an active fish tank and Instant Ocean salt, keep a light on them, and added a large clump of "Chaeto macro algae Live Coral Reef Sps Softies Marine Tank" from ebay. I also added a Welco Wonder shell and add a bit of a variety of fish food now and then. 

I have read that you should only add the spirulina powder when the water has cleared for the previous feeding. I tend to feed more often than that. Once I get adults mating, the population can drop, but always to come back. 

When I hatch a batch. I feed all I harvest to the tanks of fish. then add about 80% of the remaining water to the colony, and discard the 20% of the water with the floating shells. I use SF brine shrimp hatchery with a 2 litter soda bottle and Aquarium Co Op brine shrimp eggs because the shells seem to separate and float better than others I have tried. (Note: the 80% of the remaining water is full of hatched and unhatched shrimp, it is about the right for the amount of salt water.)

Right now I have 2 colonies going in large square-ish pretzel jars.

If the water level drops due to evaporation, replace with NON-salt water, because salt is left behind when water evaporates.

Edited January 28, 2022 by KittenFishMom