Feeding BBS without separating eggs?

[bryanisag]

Title says it all basically but I'm curious if you can feed BBS without separating or if it's a bad idea? I don't currently hatch BBS so I'm asking purely out of curiosity.

I wonder if tiny fry would know not to eat the eggs and if bigger fish did, would it just pass through them? 

I know Corey will pour in the salty water and I'm curious if other people also do that?

Lastly is it okay to post screenshots from the coops website on their forum because I just did? 

[Atitagain]

Are you asking if you can just feed eggs without hatching? (I think so, don’t think the nutritional value will be there tho) Or are you asking after the hatching, don’t separate the hatched shells? ( same answer I think so but now I think no nutritional value or very little) 

But I am a carpenter and have no knowledge of nutritional values. 
 

I never strain BBS from salt water. I drain into an old extreme food container (being careful not to get any of the hatched shells) and use turkey baster straight into the tanks. I have holes poked in the lid and I refrigerate for 4-5 days depending on how much I need. Right now I’m making a tablespoon twice a week.

[Brandon p]

If you are use co-op brine yes it’s fine. Just try  not to get the Gregg’s in with the shrimp. If you are using other brands most need to be separated.

[Guppysnail]

Most of mine from coop separate but I will share a funny story. Many years ago Pre internet living in Hicksville one small shop, they sold decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and regular eggs. I thought you just fed them. I did that for several years until I seen them hatching them at the little shop and asked what the6 were doing. I felt like a goof but we laughed at the shop so hard we cried. 🤣So no they don’t hurt fish. 

[Fish Folk]

Here is how I try to think about this, and practically how I feed BBS regularly:

(1) What you get building up when hatching Artemia cysts include: (a) salt, (b) live baby brine shrimp, (c) casings from hatched shrimp, (d) unhatched cysts, and eventually (e) dead Artemia

(2) When you feed this directly from your hatchery into your tank _all_ of these elements are being added to your aquarium. (a) Salt can be beneficial to many species; however, it may raise conductivity in your water which can be a bit problematic if you do not have a way to dilute that via water change or a flow-through system. It all depends on the species of fish you're feeding. (b) Live BBS are of course where the "money is at." There is a way to extract the smallest, newly hatched shrimp using hatchery divider that is dark on the hatching side, with a tiny crack emitting light on the other so that newly hatched BBS -- which are photo-responsive -- will swim under the crack into the light. This may be helpful for fry that are exceptionally tiny or that have a tendency to struggle digesting larger BBS. (e.g. I know of Killi breeders that prefer this method) (c) Casings are totally unhelpful, and will make a mess around the rim of your tank. To avoid adding casings, I like to allow my hatchery to rest so that casings will settle up / down. (d) Unhatched cysts are also not really all that nutritious. Larger fish may eat them and pass them through their system. Fry might have difficulties. Generally, if it doesn't wiggle, small fry / small fish just leave them alone in preference for moving food. (e) After 48 hours, Artemia begin to die, setting up an ammonia spike and seriously fouling up the water. I do _not_ prefer to feed dead BBS to my fish.

(3) To mitigate this, you can rinse baby brine shrimp under running water in a strainer net that then gets submerged into a feeding container with either clean salty or fresh water. Or alternatively, here is what I do: (a) At 24-36 hrs, I turn the air off / pull the airline out of my hatchery and allow it to settle. Live BBS settle toward the bottom 1/3 of the cone-bottom with a light shining near it. (b) I fill a large specimen container with clean, fresh tap water. I draw out the BBS from the hatchery with a syringe (airline added to end to reach down) and squirt into the freshwater. I do this until I have a desired amount in the freshwater. Typically, I am adding less than 100 ml. of salty water to the freshwater feeding container. For perspective, the ratio is about 1/20 salt/fresh dilution. (c) I leave this near enough light for shrimp to draw near to one side or another. When harvesting from here with syringe, I suck from the mid-point edges, where live Artemia are actually wiggling. This avoids the worst of casings, dead shrimp, and unhatched cysts. (c) I wipe off the outside of the feeding syringe to avoid adding clinging cysts / casings. This results in largely a low-salt, low ruffage, high live Artemia serving.

I'll admit that this is tedious. Cory sometimes has remarked something to the effect that in his opinion, Dean takes too long fooling around with his shrimp. I'm not completely sure what Dean does -- I'll have to ask him next month when he speaks at my Fish Club! But if he takes steps to better control things, I understand how it takes a lot of time.

Let me clarify: with livebearers, I just suck out the shrimp straight from the hatchery to feed the fish. I think that the salt is good for them! And their systems are larger and hardy enough to deal with undesirable elements. Same goes with _mature_ Killifish. They appreciate added salt. But with very tiny newborn fry of many species, I try to be extremely deliberate to get my feedings controlled as described above. 

Everyone has their own "recipe" for hatching BBS. As a guy who does this almost every day when fishroom is breeding, here are my ratios:

___________________

1 - Liter water

3 - Teaspoons Salt

3 - 1/2 Teaspoons Eggs

___________________

I just happen to be feeding some now. Here’s my hatchery, just about drawn down from all BBS. Notice casings & unhatched cysts near top…

Here’s my diluted shrimp ready to feed…

Notice some cysts / casings near top and bottom…

Now, go hatch out some brine shrimp! 😎

Edited August 11, 2022 by Fish Folk

[bryanisag]

On 8/11/2022 at 5:25 AM, Fish Folk said:

Here is how I try to think about this, and practically how I feed BBS regularly:

(1) What you get building up when hatching Artemia cysts include: (a) salt, (b) live baby brine shrimp, (c) casings from hatched shrimp, (d) unhatched cysts, and eventually (e) dead Artemia

(2) When you feed this directly from your hatchery into your tank _all_ of these elements are being added to your aquarium. (a) Salt can be beneficial to many species; however, it may raise conductivity in your water which can be a bit problematic if you do not have a way to dilute that via water change or a flow-through system. It all depends on the species of fish you're feeding. (b) Live BBS are of course where the "money is at." There is a way to extract the smallest, newly hatched shrimp using hatchery divider that is dark on the hatching side, with a tiny crack emitting light on the other so that newly hatched BBS -- which are photo-responsive -- will swim under the crack into the light. This may be helpful for fry that are exceptionally tiny or that have a tendency to struggle digesting larger BBS. (e.g. I know of Killi breeders that prefer this method) (c) Casings are totally unhelpful, and will make a mess around the rim of your tank. To avoid adding casings, I like to allow my hatchery to rest so that casings will settle up / down. (d) Unhatched cysts are also not really all that nutritious. Larger fish may eat them and pass them through their system. Fry might have difficulties. Generally, if it doesn't wiggle, small fry / small fish just leave them alone in preference for moving food. (e) After 48 hours, Artemia begin to die, setting up an ammonia spike and seriously fouling up the water. I do _not_ prefer to feed dead BBS to my fish.

(3) To mitigate this, you can rinse baby brine shrimp under running water in a strainer net that then gets submerged into a feeding container with either clean salty or fresh water. Or alternatively, here is what I do: (a) At 24-36 hrs, I turn the air off / pull the airline out of my hatchery and allow it to settle. Live BBS settle toward the bottom 1/3 of the cone-bottom with a light shining near it. (b) I fill a large specimen container with clean, fresh tap water. I draw out the BBS from the hatchery with a syringe (airline added to end to reach down) and squirt into the freshwater. I do this until I have a desired amount in the freshwater. Typically, I am adding less than 100 ml. of salty water to the freshwater feeding container. For perspective, the ratio is about 1/20 salt/fresh dilution. (c) I leave this near enough light for shrimp to draw near to one side or another. When harvesting from here with syringe, I suck from the mid-point edges, where live Artemia are actually wiggling. This avoids the worst of casings, dead shrimp, and unhatched cysts. (c) I wipe off the outside of the feeding syringe to avoid adding clinging cysts / casings. This results in largely a low-salt, low ruffage, high live Artemia serving.

I'll admit that this is tedious. Cory sometimes has remarked something to the effect that in his opinion, Dean takes too long fooling around with his shrimp. I'm not completely sure what Dean does -- I'll have to ask him next month when he speaks at my Fish Club! But if he takes steps to better control things, I understand how it takes a lot of time.

Let me clarify: with livebearers, I just suck out the shrimp straight from the hatchery to feed the fish. I think that the salt is good for them! And their systems are larger and hardy enough to deal with undesirable elements. Same goes with _mature_ Killifish. They appreciate added salt. But with very tiny newborn fry of many species, I try to be extremely deliberate to get my feedings controlled as described above. 

Everyone has their own "recipe" for hatching BBS. As a guy who does this almost every day when fishroom is breeding, here are my ratios:

___________________

1 - Liter water

3 - Teaspoons Salt

3 - 1/2 Teaspoons Eggs

___________________

I just happen to be feeding some now. Here’s my hatchery, just about drawn down from all BBS. Notice casings & unhatched cysts near top…

Here’s my diluted shrimp ready to feed…

Notice some cysts / casings near top and bottom…

Now, go hatch out some brine shrimp! 😎

Wow I can't believe you answered my question so thoughly! Thank you so much.

I hadn't thought about how the castings will float to the top of your aquarium which isn't great. 

I plan to try hatching BBS after I get my garage turned into a fish room. At the moment though my whole house is too much of a mess to start something new like that