Brine Shrimp Questions...

[jwcarlson]

On 1/19/2023 at 12:22 AM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

You can get API salt from big box stores for super cheap. That’s what I started with before I switched over to Fritz. 
 

In my opinion, it’s worth the $3 or $4 to try it out. If it solves the problem, great! If it doesn’t, it was just a couple of dollars to rule it out. 

Yeah, I'm just an hour drive from anything, so usually try the fish store first. 🙂

[jwcarlson]

So, no heat doesn't change the results either.  As you can see, I think, basically every egg hatched, very few got out of their shells.  Dang. 

Getting aquarium salt tomorrow when we make the trek to LFS. 

Thinking of starting another batch and letting the air go whole hog.  Am I tumbling them enough to help wiggle them out of their shells?  I do not know the mechanism of how they hatch. Perhaps the tumbling is just for oxygenation. 

 

[redfish]

I hope you get this figured out.  I've been holding off on trying to hatch some as I don't need another thing to keep up with right now.  Maybe one day.

[Schuyler]

I've had this happen too but with a different brand. They look half hatched.

I'm not sure what change made the difference because I kinda just threw everything at it after two failed batches.

The San Francisco Bay egg instructions say to let it run for an hour before adding the salt.

So what I do is add 1L water, add dechlorinator, add some Seachem Equilibrium or baking soda, wait a minute for it to mix, add the eggs, wait an hour, add 2T salt, and then ever once in a while I swish it around to get the eggs down off the sides.

I wonder if it's a water hardness thing like how cherry shrimp need minerals in the water to form their shell 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Schuyler
"Their" not "they're"

[jwcarlson]

I'll certainly keep trying.  Will do an hour wait next batch. 

Have one now running in a bucket of water at 74 and removed air defuser letting it send big bubbles. 

Still planning on getting different salt tomorrow.  My water is about as hard as it gets, so perhaps that's part of the issue. 

[Patrick_G]

Sorry that you’re still having trouble. I’m still pretty new at hatching bbs my myself so I don’t have much to add, but I’m learning a lot from the thread. 
 

[jwcarlson]

On 1/20/2023 at 4:56 PM, Patrick_G said:

Sorry that you’re still having trouble. I’m still pretty new at hatching bbs my myself so I don’t have much to add, but I’m learning a lot from the thread. 
 

To be clear, I'm not frustrated or upset or anything.  I will say that I've never failed this badly at hatching eggs though. 😄

I will say that I'm glad I'm not doing this in the middle of having a batch of fry to raise.

I like a good riddle.

Edited January 21, 2023 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

Might as well journal this.  🤣

This AM, the ones hatched in 74 degree water hanging in one of my aging barrels.  

It's wild because pretty much every egg is hatching, they look like they're parachuting.  Basically no live ones, though.  Feel bad dumping them, but don't want to feed a bunch of shells. 

Bought aquarium salt today on LFS trip.  Using aquarium salt, 74 degree aging barrel, and waiting an hour before putting eggs in. 

Edited January 22, 2023 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

It's been about 24 hours and it looks like it will be the same result.  They're not all hatched yet, maybe 50%.  But they're all doing the parachute routine.  😞

 

Not sure what to experiment with next.  Probably won't be trying another batch tonight... going to do some more reading/watching and see what I'm missing.  I guess if I think of it when I'm changing discus water tonight I might set some of the change water aside and see if that makes any difference. *shrug*

[KittenFishMom]

I wonder if the eggs got too hot during shipping and are swelling open, but were dead before they hit the water? 

I use 1 tablespoon of Instant Ocean and let it bubble in a little in less than a liter of water usually with a light on it and a thermometer in it so it doesn't get too hot. After the salt looks dissolved I add 1 to 2 scoops of ACO eggs, and use a gentle rolling boil from an air hose, no stone. I saw ACO was selling shrimp eggs salt. I was guessing it had a pH buffer and other stuff for the shrimp. Might be worth trying. Only times I had problems was when the water got too hot. I like to keep it close to 80f, but try not to go higher than that. My eggs live a a zippered bag with all the air squeezed out in the freezer.

[Schuyler]

I asked in live foods Facebook group and someone's said this happens to them when they don't add enough salt. 

Someone else said to give it more air.

And then someone else said they decapsulate their eggs before hatching which looks like a scary process involving bleach and other chemicals to burn off the shell

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@jwcarlson I set up my hatchery last night and put the eggs in this morning. Took some pics and some small videos for you, but unfortunately you can’t share videos and I’m not uploading 4 second clips to YouTube, lol. Anybody know if you can send videos through message?

Without the eggs you can see the steady stream of bubbles from the air pump. With the eggs it just looks like a picture of the eggs. 
 

I’ll tried to message you, but you cannot send videos through messages either  

Edited January 23, 2023 by AllFishNoBrakes

[jwcarlson]

I feel like I am successfully hatching them, but something in the water kills them before they can exit the shell fully.  Too much salt?  Not enough?  Chloramine?  Something else? 

I appreciate the effort, @AllFishNoBrakes!

Really slow air and full out air have had the same results, so I don't feel like that's the cause.

I did start a batch with water from my discus tank which is aged and dechlorinated (and chloramines should be handled after 24 hours in its filtration).  So we shall see what tomorrow brings!  

[nabokovfan87]

I can't say it will help, but... can we hit reset?  Try these directions out to the letter and see what happens?

@jwcarlson

When Cory says "room temp water" I think for most of us that means 74-78 degrees.  I would set the heat to around there and just follow the rest of everything he mentions and see what happens.

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[jwcarlson]

@nabokovfan87

That's the instructions I'm following, but I will re-watch it in case I'm omitting something.  

To be fair, I believe they are hatching like a pro.  They're just got leaving their eggs. 😄

Edited January 23, 2023 by jwcarlson

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/22/2023 at 6:23 PM, jwcarlson said:

That's the instructions I'm following, but I will re-watch it in case I'm omitting something.  

To be fair, I believe they are hatching like a pro.  They're just got leaving their eggs. 😄

Salinity looks pretty straight forward and separate from whatever QTY of eggs you're hatching.  I'd start with the normal amount of water, heat it up, then add salt +  1 tsp of eggs, run it for 18 and check progress and just do a sanity check.  If you're still having issues, maybe your eggs got some humidity or temp damage.

As long as method is good, then we know that's not a variable to "fix".

Here's another, if it helps at all then it's worth sharing.  Nearly identical in terms of method.  YOU GOT THIS JW!
 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[jwcarlson]

I've got to be honest, I'm not sure how I could be screwing it up.  The only thing I'd say that looks like it could be vastly different is amount of salt?  The (Scottish?) guy in the last video looked like he tossed four big nearly table spoons.  Watched another guy do about the same thing.  Maybe I don't have enough salt in there.  The stuff I'm using is pretty coarse (but the aquarium salt was not).  That said, I've read that they can handle a wide range of salinity, so perhaps I should put three tablespoons in and see if that makes a step change.  Trying not to change more than two things at once so that it is easy enough to revert one back and re-check.

I do genuinely appreciate the assistance and suggestions.  I'll get it figured out at some point.  It's possible the eggs are "bad" in some fashion, though, again... they're hatching, they're just not shucking their shells.  Maybe I can find a timelapse of a brine shrimp cyst hatching.  That might provide some insight.  Though I suspect that might be a difficult ask. 😄

Reading another site that's saying two table spoons per quart.  I think I'm definitely going to add some more salt.

[KittenFishMom]

look on the ACO site for they instructions for hatching shrimp eggs. I'll see if I can find it before I post this....

2 liters water, 2 tablespoons salt

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/faqs/brine-shrimp-hatching-recipe

and there is this brine shrimp salt, but I think you should be getting some good results with plain rock salt or Kosher salt.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/easy-brine-shrimp-salt

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/22/2023 at 6:58 PM, jwcarlson said:

The stuff I'm using is pretty coarse (but the aquarium salt was not).  That said, I've read that they can handle a wide range of salinity, so perhaps I should put three tablespoons in and see if that makes a step change.  Trying not to change more than two things at once so that it is easy enough to revert one back and re-check.

Yep, 100%.  I tend to err on the side of slightly more.  Speaking of salt in general, not for BBS.  If you have a refractometer, maybe that helps, but just keep in mind that you'd add slightly more for chunkier salt.  Fritz salt (Cory's video) is extremely fine by comparison to something like API salt.  Ice cream salt and some rock salt isn't pure, so just keep that in mind as a potential issue there as well (it's literally on the box, "not safe for human consumption".

You'll get there. We'll sort it out.  Method is fine, we move on to the eggs and start a fund to get you a new tin! 😂

On 1/22/2023 at 7:14 PM, KittenFishMom said:

and there is this brine shrimp salt, but I think you should be getting some good results with plain rock salt or Kosher salt.

see above, buyer beware!

https://www.poison.org/articles/ice-melt-products-harmful-to-pets-and-kids

Edited January 23, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[jwcarlson]

Certainly the ice melt products aren't safe, but I am using plain rock salt for softeners.  Which is quite rocky. 

 

Red arrow is where mine are getting to in case the pics haven't been showing up. 

[jwcarlson]

Only 24 hours with about double salt (roughly 4 tablespoons).  And there is at least a difference.  A few swimming around, most eggs looking slightly lighter colored, but not any parachuters.  Which has been happening by now usually.  So in the morning hoping for some good results.  But the fact that it is different is a good sign, I think.  Or at least a different result might tell me something else. 

[jwcarlson]

Ok.  So this AM I awakened to another total parachute hatch with some tiny amount of live ones.  I strained out the live ones and in the middle of that I thought... what if I'm getting to this development stage and then I'm flushing them because I'm hitting some arbitrary timeline?  So this AM was about 36 hours.  I still had a quart of the salt water solution so I dumped it back in and got all of the parachuters back into the mix and put them back on the bubbler.  

If these suckers are alive and I've been rinsing good hatches down the drain for like 10 days I'm going to feel like a fool. 🤣

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/24/2023 at 7:03 AM, jwcarlson said:

Ok.  So this AM I awakened to another total parachute hatch with some tiny amount of live ones.  I strained out the live ones and in the middle of that I thought... what if I'm getting to this development stage and then I'm flushing them because I'm hitting some arbitrary timeline?  So this AM was about 36 hours.  I still had a quart of the salt water solution so I dumped it back in and got all of the parachuters back into the mix and put them back on the bubbler.  

Hmm... maybe have a jug with some of the water at the same salinity so you can "top off" the hatcher when you drain it.  Very peculiar.

[jwcarlson]

I'm not hatching very many eggs at all, so I'm thinking the volume isn't too important at this point.

Not sure what to try now if they're in the same state when I get home.  Hopefully I'm just an idiot and have bee giving up on the hatch too soon.  Though not sure why it would take over 36 hours at 80 degrees?  That's what gives me pause.

In any event time will tell, I guess.  I did buy a small amount of some different eggs just to be able to compare, not sure when they'll be here.  Friday maybe.  

[Schuyler]

Maybe it's a temperature shock? Maybe if you leave the eggs out of the fridge for an hour before adding them to the water