What salt do you use to hatch Brine Shrimp?

[tolstoy21]

On 2/4/2021 at 7:04 AM, MickS77 said:

I use the Solar Naturals salt for water softeners. I haven't tried anything else, eagerly waiting for the coop to release theirs. 

I use solar salt as well. I scoop it right out of the softerner's salt bin.

[MickS77]

On 8/11/2022 at 6:49 PM, tolstoy21 said:

I use solar salt as well. I scoop it right out of the softerner's salt bin.

I have since switched to Fritz RPM salt, I have noticed better hatching with it 

[tolstoy21]

On 8/12/2022 at 7:26 AM, MickS77 said:

I have since switched to Fritz RPM salt, I have noticed better hatching with it 

I originally used Instant Ocean, but the frequency with which i hatch I wanted to reduce my costs a tad, so I experimented with solar salt. I haven't noticed a significant decrease in hatch rate, but I have had to play around with the amount I put in. Right now, approximately 4 TBS of solar salt and a tsp of baking soda seems to do a pretty good job (this is based on the full volume of the Ziss Artemia Blender). 

I wont speculate on which kind of salt is better (I'd probably wager marine salt is better in the end, used in the method Cory uses it -- in a whole environment kind of approach). But for cost efficiency you can't beat solar salt. (I'd just advise people find one that has no additives if they go this route).

I do rinse my brine when feeding from a pitcher because I don't want to influence the params of my tanks with added KH (I breed mostly soft water species). But I do squirt some pipettes of salt water + brine into fry tanks every AM, and have never had problems that I've observed. 

I've used Diamond Crystal Solar Naturals for a few years now without issues. It's very widely available in most big box hardware stores, which makes it convenient. 

I don't want to turn this into a this is better than that thread, but just wanted to share information on one of the salts available that is widely available everywhere, that people can use without issue (in my personal experience), and that is pretty darn economical.