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Brine shrimp culture tips


Kieflow
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Hello all, I am trying to get a small brine shrimp culture going that I can harvest out of every 1-2 days. It only needs to be enough to feed 4 Pygmy sunfish. Currently I’m using a 2 gallon container. Substrate is crushed coral for added minerals/bacteria surface area. I haven’t done any water changes in months and nitrates still read 0. I am having an issue where the shrimp start dying off after 2-3 days of hatching. I am still adding eggs to the culture 1-2x a week. Any tips for keeping the shrimp alive? Thanks! 

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Are you testing for ammonia? If you have zero beneficial bacteria you will get zero nitrates. Ie zero nitrates doesn't necessarily mean everything is good. 

One thing to try is cutting back on how many brine shrimp you're trying to raise. If you're trying to keep the same number alive that most folks hatch in the hatchers, it's not likely to work unless you're using way more water.

I used to raise bbs up to brine shrimp in a 3 gallon bucket. Around once per week or so, I'd add maybe a 1/4 tsp of hatched bbs to the bucket. That's a very small proportion of what a typical batch yields.

I do my hatches in 1L amounts, every 48hrs. So every 48hrs I'd remove 1L of water from the bucket and replace it with the "dirty" hatching water. I only added new bbs to the "growout" culture if the amount in the bucket was getting low. 

Also, obvious question but you're trying to raise/keep them in saltwater, right? 

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