Issues With Baby Brine Shrimp

[DBam]

Been having some problems with my brine shrimp hatches. Water starts out in the 70's (°F) and eventually settles at 20.5°C or 69°F. I add 2 Tbls of uniodized salt and a pinch of baking soda in chlorinated tap water to the Ziss hatchery and leave it for ~36 hours. Air is steady but not a violent boil. When I go to drain and strain the hatch out the hatchery looks like the photo below. There is a layer of yellow/orange that is not live shrimp. I can't tell if they're dead or if they might be molts. Fish will still eat them but pickier ones turn them down, probably because they're not moving. Wondering if anyone else has encountered this and what could be done to increase live shrimp yields. 

 

I've searched around online and found people describing similar problems, sometimes on this same forum, but no resolutions. I'm determined to sort it out. I run a new batch every day to feed some tiny wild caught Dicrossus and can test and observe on a 36 hour cycle.

[TOtrees]

The water in your photo looks really clear to me. At the end of 36-48 hrs, my waste water is distinctly hazy, even after the bbs have been filtered out. 

Can you borrow or steal a few cups of marine salt to try a few batches with that? I use marine salt with no baking soda. 

I’d also try to get your temp up. I use an incandescent bulb in a desk lamp right next to the hatcher. Room temp is low 70s, the hatcher is 80ish during the day (light is off at night). 

[DBam]

Thanks, yes I definitely should be using a light on them. How many eggs are you using for your water to go cloudy? I'm probably around half a teaspoon right now, give or take.

[KittenFishMom]

bbs need light even if they don't need it for heat.

[jwcarlson]

On 4/3/2023 at 12:42 AM, DBam said:

Thanks, yes I definitely should be using a light on them. How many eggs are you using for your water to go cloudy? I'm probably around half a teaspoon right now, give or take.

That's about how many eggs I do and it's typically not cloudy unless I don't heat them at all and it goes quite a bit longer than typical.  Which reminds me that I didn't put eggs in my 2nd hatcher this morning... that's going to be a monkey wrench in about a day. 😄

[TOtrees]

On 4/3/2023 at 1:42 AM, DBam said:

How many eggs are you using for your water to go cloudy? 

I run about 1tsp eggs in about 1.5L of water (sorry to mix units). I also use the ziss hatcher, and it's about 2.5" from the top. That gets 1 1/2 tbsp of salt. 

I think I'm pretty close to the limit, if I lose my agitation for anything more than around 30mins towards the end of the cycle, I start to see die-offs. 

I will also say something here that I've said elsewhere, I think that separation is more useful/important that hatch rate or temperature or any of that. Separation varies from brand to brand, and I don't know how good it is with the coop brand. I've found a brand here in canada that has phenomenal separation, and that makes collecting feeding super easy. No filtration to remove hatched from unhatched eggs is necessary. At the end of each run, I turn off the air for 10 mins, and then 99.99% of the shells and unhatched rise to the surface, so all I have to do is open the drain tube at the bottom and close it before the shells go through. The only downside of the brand I use is that hatching takes the better part of 48hrs. It's pretty much done after 36 or 40 hours, but for my schedule it works best to run it for 48. 

[Tommy Vercetti]

I add 1 2/3 Tbls of pure rock salt and a pinch of baking soda in chlorinated tap water to 1 liter of water in my hatchery. I keep the temperature at about 75f using an incandescent bulb.

[Cmike15]

I use the coop brine shrimp hatcher using 1.5 - 2 tbs of salt with half a teaspoon of eggs, any more and i'd need more than 2 active tanks.

I also don't dechlorinate hearing it helps to hatch the eggs. My area doesn't add huge amounts so it's been fine. when warmer mid summer i can get a small hatch after 24 hours but the majority 36-48 hours in. i have an overhead light on all day.

[Myersc1989]

Mine always take 36-48 hours. Any sooner and I get what you got. Same problem with temp but it works out in the end so I don't worry about it. Around the 24 hour mark I add some fritz complete and haven't had any issues.

[tolstoy21]

On 4/3/2023 at 2:19 AM, KittenFishMom said:

bbs need light even if they don't need it for heat.

On 4/3/2023 at 8:06 PM, Cmike15 said:

i have an overhead light on all day.

I have my shrimp on the same light as the room, which means a normal day/night light schedule. This does not seem to affect the hatch. I've hatched shrimp everyday now for 4+ years and have had very few bad batches.

On 4/2/2023 at 3:05 PM, DBam said:

Water starts out in the 70's (°F) and eventually settles at 20.5°C or 69°F

I would run the water much warmer than that. At 78F, mine take about 36 hours to hatch. At lower temps, the hatch will take much longer, if they hatch at all.

 

Edited May 5 by tolstoy21

[DBam]

Thanks for all the responses. Quick update; hatcheries are now inside a 10 gallon tank that sits at 78-78 °F. There's a light on a timer for 16 hours a day. I still get some of that dead looking stuff at the bottom but what I think I need now is to swap out the Ziss airstone and line to it for something rigid that can get air right to the bottom point of the hatcher. I remember a certain Deano on the YouTubes mentioning that he did that too with the Ziss hatcher. Will try and upload a picture of it later.

Edited May 5 by DBam

[sumplkrum]

What brand of brine shrimp are you using?

The coop brine shrimp are nice because the egg shells float and separate really well. I usually don't get any gunk at the bottom at all.

Other brands I've used, the eggs tend to be more dry and 'powdery'.
The shells sink to the bottom and make a mess ... so your brand could be messy.

-- That being said, your first picture doesn't look like egg shells collected at the bottom. It looks like dead shrimp.

 

Personally, I actually prefer decent agitation from the air source.
It doesn't hurt the shrimp at all, and it keeps the water in your container well-mixed.