Think of brine shrimp eggs as chicken eggs. It takes lots of energy for the chick to break the shell and emerge. Brine shrimp have that outer hard shell, and an inner soft shell (probably made of lipids or something). When you decapsulate, you are removing that hard shell. I'll quickly go over my method of decapsulating eggs.
Step 1. Hydration
Brine shrimp eggs have dimples on them when they are dried out and shipped to you. In order for the shell to dissolve right and start the process, you need to hydrate them to fill them with water. Pour some eggs (maybe 1/2 teaspoon or whatever you want), into a small rinsed out soda bottle. Fill this 1/3 of the way with RODI water. You can use tap if you don't use RODI for your main tank.
Step 2. Waiting
The eggs take a while to hydrate. I usually keep them in the bottle for around 2 hours. Every 10-15 minutes, shake up the bottle and roll it around. Some of the eggs will float and you want to move them around.
Step 3. Decapsulating
Once the eggs are hydrated, they look like little spheres. It is now time to take off the hard outer shell. Pour bleach (standard, unscented, cheap) into the bottle. Use as much bleach as you did water to hydrate them. The bleach will dissolve the shells. You want to keep the eggs suspended in the water column while they are decapsulating, so you will have to shake/swirl the bottle around for a couple minutes. It only takes a few (maybe 5 at most) minutes for the eggshells to dissolve. You will know when they are done because they will turn orange. Don't keep them in the bleach for too long though, or the bleach will enter the cysts and kill the shrimp.
Step 4. Rinsing
Now that the eggs are decapsulated, you need to get the bleach off them. There are a couple ways to do this. The first is to use a chlorine remover like amquel, prime, etc. I do not do this. I use the second method which is rinsing. I pour the eggs from the soda bottle into a 53 micron sieve that is used to collect rotifers. This will catch all the eggs. I run tap water (cool, but not cold) over the eggs for a few minutes, swirling them around a few times. This will rinse all the bleach off the eggs. You know they are rinsed off when you can't smell the bleach on the eggs. Get your nose right up to them and take a big whiff.
Step 5. Hatching
Hatch your eggs like usual (hatchery or upside down 2 liter bottle).
Good luck!
