Brine Shrimp Hatchery

[kagome]

I have been looking into some different kinds of brine shrimp hatcheries and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with raising brine shrimp for fish food? Especially whether or not it is worth it to raise them or if I am just better off buying them frozen?

[Carl]

Although there may be better hatcheries (this is an area of Aquarium Care I not not been active in for the last decade, so maybe I am dated here), I used the San Francisco Brine Shrimp Hatchery which worked reasonably well for me.

I personally found this to often be a hassle unless I was really serious about the reasons I wanted live baby brine shrimp.

See this website for excellent instructions as to the use of this kit:
HATCHING BRINE SHRIMP


Personally I would subsitute Marine Buffer for the Epsom salts and baking soda or better would be to purchase a small box of marine salt (it is not that expensive).

The use of a Hydrometer can make salt measurement more accurate.


Carl

[goldenpuon]

I have raised them a couple times but they never lived for more than 3 days. Probably due to overfeeding. What I do know is they like vigorous aeration and a temperature of about 80 F. And possibly a PH of 8.5? I'm not sure on the PH part. It has been a while.

I hope that helps. Good luck Kagome!

[bikeguy33]

arent they sea monkeys? if so....why feed pets to pets....lmao

[fishfever]

I think lots of folks have hatched baby brine shrimp for feeding to fry but not many have tried raising them to adults for bigger fish. I was actually planning to try this since every time I've ordered Daphnia cultures to raise they arrive mostly dead. I used an inverted 2 liter soda bottle floating in my tank with an air line to hatch baby brine shrimp and it worked okay. But I have plans to try this in a dedicated 10g tank (it's being used now to medicate some tetras). There is a very detailed article from a fellow in New Zealand on the web using one separated tank to hatch and one to raise to adults and I was going to try to follow his method. I think he's raised adults to some ridiculous size like an inch (maybe 1/2 inch?); I can't recall now. If I'm successful I'll be feeding mine at no more than 1/4" as my fish don't like really big food. But the whole idea is to give them more variety and from the few times I've fed live food I know my fish *really* enjoy chasing and eating live foods.

[Suzie Q (Lori)]

I have hatched bbs for my Betta fry...another breeder in my group does NOT use salt. He uses baking soda? instead. You can feed from the hatchery to the fry with out having to filter them due to the salt. Not sure if that would work for raising them to adulthood though. I think Renee raised them to adulthood. I don know they eat green water.

Live food also stimulates the fish (gives them exercise if you will). I am getting some Daphnia from this same breeder that uses baking soda.

Good Luck and let us know if you are successful
Lori

[goldenpuon]

I actually have not raised them to adulthood apart from maybe once. I had several as pets when I was 10 years old and one grew to a 1/6 inch before it died but that was before I had kept fish. But that is the longest I ever had one live. I think it was about a month old when it died.

The rest after that when I tried to raise them for fish food lived under a week although a number of them did live 3+ days. Still, they were very tiny then and far from adults.

[kagome]

Sept 17, 2009 22:24:51 GMT -5 fishfever said:

There is a very detailed article from a fellow in New Zealand on the web using one separated tank to hatch and one to raise to adults and I was going to try to follow his method. I think he's raised adults to some ridiculous size like an inch (maybe 1/2 inch?); I can't recall now.

Do you have a link to this article?

I'm pretty sure that I would want pretty good sized adults but if it is going to be a huge pain in the butt and just as expensive I may stick with buying frozen.