Trouble hatching brine shrimp

[PhishyMatt0519]

Help. Im doing 1L  mixtures of 2 tablespoons of pickling salt (morton brand, it says only salt in the ingrediants) 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and heating to 80 degrees. The container is inside a small tank within which im using a heater to heat the ambient water around the bbs hatcher to 80 degrees. Everything was washed with hot water and has not come in contact with any chemicals/soaps. Im at the 24 hour mark with very few live bbs2, im talking almost none, and a small amount of dead bbs in the bottom. What am i doing wrong? Prior to this method i used pre mixed salt/bs mixtures and had decent succes. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by PhishyMatt0519

[Raeburn]

Hi. Are the eggs fresh? It sounds to me as everything else is in order. Give it another 12 hours.

[PhishyMatt0519]

Hello thanks for the assistance! Yes, litteraly received them from the co-op a few days ago lol. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by PhishyMatt0519

[Daniel]

Aeration and movement are important when hatching shrimp. I have had good luck using a cone with a rigid airline tube at the bottom. When I wash the cones between uses, I get soap in them all the time so I don't think soap is an issue.

My hatch rate is between 90 and 100%.

[Maggie]

I use a tiny little hatchery that is basically a shallow plastic dish, a plastic insert piece that guides the shrimp to the center, a little screened tab to hold the shrimp once they swim in, and a top. It does not use air or electricity, and you can set it up anywhere. But this setup is only enough to feed two small groups of fish (11 dwarf danios and 8 rasboras) one "good" meal and one "snack sized" meal. It would not work well if you have a lot of fish. I wish the Coop would sell these small hatcheries because I will need a second one and do not have space (or fish!) for the one like what Daniel has.

[MattyIce]

6 hours ago, PhishyMatt0519 said:

Help. Im doing 1L  mixtures of 2 tablespoons of pickling salt (morton brand, it says only salt in the ingrediants) 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and heating to 80 degrees. The container is inside a small tank within which im using a heater to heat the ambient water around the bbs hatcher to 80 degrees. Everything was washed with hot water and has not come in contact with any chemicals/soaps. Im at the 24 hour mark with very few live bbs2, im talking almost none, and a small amount of dead bbs in the bottom. What am i doing wrong? Prior to this method i used pre mixed salt/bs mixtures and had decent succes. 

 

My assumption is that you are using Aquarium Co-op Brine shrimp and that you were using the San Fran Bay brand.  I have found the aquarium co-op brine shrimp take a little longer to hatch than the San Fran Bay Brand (2-8 hours longer) and that almost all the eggs float, whether they are hydrated or not, instead of the san fran bay brand which mostly sink to the bottom once they hydrate.

So after 24 hours, there wont be that many hatched shrimp, barely any dead brine shrimp either, almost everything will be floating.  this sounds like what you are experiencing, i'd say wait longer, if you give it another 4 hours and the brine shrimp you can collect increases, it is probably just a matter of the AC eggs taking a little longer to hatch than what you are used to.

 

Though incase that is not the issue, another factor is that pickeling salt is more fine and packs together better than other salts, like kosher, if using pickling salt as a replacement for Kosher salt in a recipe you would typically only need about half.  Maybe try 1 and 3/4 tablespoons of the Pickeling salt instead of 2.

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by MattyIce

[Ken Dyer]

I also tend to need about 36-48 hours to get a good hatch (room ~76 degrees F, plus a lightbulb on the hatcher). I haven't cracked open my coop brine shrimp eggs yet but assume they will be about the same.

So you may need to give them another 12-24 hours before they really start going. The nice part is the hatch time seems to be pretty consistent so once you know your approximate hatch time it does get easier to plan around 🙂

[PhishyMatt0519]

Thanks everyone! I will give it a little more time and see what happens. And start another batch with a little less salt like mattyice suggested to see if i notice a difference. 

[Ken Dyer]

@PhishyMatt0519 I think of it like perfecting a recipe where the main ingredient is your water chemistry. So depending on what comes out of your tap you'll eventually come up with a recipe that works for you 🙂 

[tolstoy21]

10 hours ago, PhishyMatt0519 said:

Help. Im doing 1L  mixtures of 2 tablespoons of pickling salt (morton brand, it says only salt in the ingrediants) 1/4 teaspoon baking soda,

I just set up a Ziss hatchery last night and put in two kind-of heaping tablespoons if solar salt. The Ziss holds 2L of water. I checked the salinity this morning and it's at 40ppt, which is the upper range of what Brine Shrimp Direct recommends for salinity for brine shrimp (I'm using their eggs).  My temp is about 78F.

So maybe cut your salt in half?

I'm certainly not en expert on this subject by any means. But I have living BBS in my hatchery this morning using the formula of 1 TBS of salt and 1/4 tsp baking soda per liter of water.

Note: I've hatched shrimp many times before, but last night was my first time trying the Ziss hatchery and trying solar salt + baking soda with measuring spoons, instead of pre-mixing Instant Ocean to the desired salinity in a bucket.  

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by tolstoy21

[Daniel]

My formula is 2 level tablespoons of Instant Ocean Reef salt to 1 liter of tap water. My temp ~70 °F and I use very strong aeration. The shrimp begin to hatch at about the 24 hour mark and continue to hatch for about 12 more hours after that.

I start a cone every 12 hours so that there is just hatched fresh shrimp in the morning and evening. I like the shrimp best when it has just hatched.

 

[Fonske]

My BBS eggs (not Aquarium Co-op) came with their own coarse salt, measuring spoon, and instructions of "use 12 grams of salt =one leveled measuring spoon per half a liter water". BBS have been hatching nicely with this recipe.  I saw other people use two table spoons for on liter so I did a quick and dirty comparison today (one measurement only, so no error estimate) using my "12 grams spoon",  table spoon, the coarse salt and fine table salt.

Results:

• 1 leveled "12 grams spoon" is 12 grams for both coarse and fine salt 
• 1 leveled table spoon is 18 grams coarse salt and 20 grams fine salt 
• 1 heaped table spoon is 23 grams of fine salt and 30 grams of coarse salt (it heaps higher)

So my suggestion is to try one slightly heaped table spoon of salt per liter.

 

[Raeburn]

Hi PhistMatt, how was your hatch in the end? 

[PhishyMatt0519]

 I ended up with a decent yield! Just took longer than im used to. I do still believe my "recipe" needs a little tweaking. Im setting up more batches than i normally do to experiment. Thanks again guys.