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Having Trouble Hatching BBS


JaredL
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I'm using a DIY setup with the upside down 2ltr. Since the picture, I've switched to gently feeding air in the bottom with no stone. I have a 75w incandescent bulb positioned to where it keeps water temp between 79 and 80F. I have tried 2 batches now, letting them run for up to 72 hours checking on them multiple times a day. I'm not sure what the issue is.

My tap water is hard with PH of 8.0 so I don't add baking soda, and I've tried (aquarium)salt concentrations of 1Tbs per liter and 1.5Tbs per liter. I'm using 2 scoops of eggs(80% hatch from "brineshrimpdirect", 4months old, refrigerated) using the little scoop provided with the eggs. I'll get a very small percentage of hatch, but there's so many unhatched eggs still left that it's not even worth harvesting those.

I was previously using one of those black round hatching trays with decent success, but was hoping to get more with this DIY setup. Hoping someone here can tell me the missing piece in my BBS hatching recipe or method. Thanks!

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It sounds like you're not using enough salt. Here is how I would do it:

Put 3x teaspoons of Aquarium Salt (we use API) in a coffee-sized cup with HOT tap water, and stir until 90% of the salt is mixed into the water. Then pour that into your inverted 2-liter hatchery.

Repeat -- same amount of salt -- you'll end up with 6x teaspoons of dissolved salt in your hatchery water.

Top the water off with cool tap water. You don't want your water temperature to be either too hot nor too cold. Just tepid.

Add 2x rounded teaspoons of Brine Shrimp Eggs. We also use Brine Shrimp Direct Eggs -- they should work great. 

To harvest them, turn off the air, and either (1) Slowly pour our into a brine shrimp net (fine mesh) or (2) wait for the water to settle, and draw shrimp out of the bottom with a baster.

For reference, we use 2x 1-liter inverted bottles (cut the ingredients above in half), and stagger our hatches by a day to always have some on hand. 

 

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31 minutes ago, Fish Folk said:

It sounds like you're not using enough salt. Here is how I would do it:

Put 3x teaspoons of Aquarium Salt (we use API) in a coffee-sized cup with HOT tap water, and stir until 90% of the salt is mixed into the water. Then pour that into your inverted 2-liter hatchery.

Repeat -- same amount of salt -- you'll end up with 6x teaspoons of dissolved salt in your hatchery water.

Top the water off with cool tap water. You don't want your water temperature to be either too hot nor too cold. Just tepid.

Add 2x rounded teaspoons of Brine Shrimp Eggs. We also use Brine Shrimp Direct Eggs -- they should work great. 

To harvest them, turn off the air, and either (1) Slowly pour our into a brine shrimp net (fine mesh) or (2) wait for the water to settle, and draw shrimp out of the bottom with a baster.

For reference, we use 2x 1-liter inverted bottles (cut the ingredients above in half), and stagger our hatches by a day to always have some on hand. 

 

Thanks for the reply! So you say to use 6 teaspoons of salt. I have been using 1Tbs(tablespoon) of salt per liter which would be the same amount you recommend(3tsp=1Tbs). Everything else you describe sounds similar to what I'm doing. Perhaps I'm missing a detail somewhere. I will try again following your instructions carefully and see if my results change. Thanks again for the reply!

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It could be the salt levels but I would think that 1.5 Tablespoon per liter would be good, that's what I have always used to hatch eggs. If you have access to a hydrometer to measure the salinity level, you want the specific gravity around 1.018.  What I would do is, add a pinch of baking soda. Your water may be hard, but what's the pH, the pH needs to be up around 8.2, try to bump the temp up a little bit, just a few degrees, to 82.  If you try all these and still have bad hatches, I would have to say the eggs are bad.

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Just now, JaredL said:

Thanks for the reply! So you say to use 6 teaspoons of salt. I have been using 1Tbs(tablespoon) of salt per liter which would be the same amount you recommend(3tsp=1Tbs). Everything else you describe sounds similar to what I'm doing. Perhaps I'm missing a detail somewhere. I will try again following your instructions carefully and see if my results change. Thanks again for the reply!

For what it is worth I use 2 tablespoons per liter of Instant Ocean Reef Crystals and have a very good hatch rate.

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Also... here is one way to harvest 

(1) Remove air, allow shrimp to settle, draw out with baster (shrimp gather toward bottom, especially if light is focused there) 

 (2) Drain the shrimp from the baster through a small, fine mesh brine shrimp net. 

(3) Dump the shrimp in the net into a specimen container of tank water to lower salinity before feeding to fish (note: many fish keepers do not do this step... )

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My air hose is actually connected to the bottom, so I will just concentrate light at the bottom, as you mentioned, unplug hose from the pump(positioned above water level) and when I lower the hose it will siphon out. 

I have debated on rinsing the shrimp, as I do have alot of plants in the tank and I'm not sure if they'll react to the salt solution. Though I imagine the concentration will be miniscule once diluted by 29gal of water.

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I'd consider trying different eggs.  maybe borrow a couple spoonfuls from someone to test.  or you could ask someone to try out your eggs in a working setup.  I do exactly the same as you but at about 1/3 the scale.  350ml water 1/2 table spoon (8.5g) half a "scoop" (1.7ml/scoop) of eggs the same eggs as you (from amazon).  I'm not experienced to know a good from bad yield but i see lots of junk floating to the top, presumably egg shells, and what feels like a lot of BBS when I'm done, (I harvest starting at around the 18hr mark and then keep harvesting throughout the day and freeze the rest).

 

Or if you're less stingy than I am you could just throw out what you have and blindly order a new batch of eggs (maybe from ACO or another reputable distributor).

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