DIY brine shrimp hatchery

[hovhanh]

I am curious about setting up a brine shrimp hatchery. I've read that all you need is a water container, an air pump, and a heater in order to get it going.

Ideal water temperature for hatching brine shrimp?
Time of process?

Does anyone have a set-up with pictures?

A full list of materials such as brine shrimp eggs and where to acquire them would be helpful.

 

[KarlBob]

A quick Google search should turn up several pages with detailed instructions, pictures, etc. Let's see what I can find...

1. About.com
2. Brine Shrimp Direct
3. Dwayne Sapp, here at ReefCentral

There are plenty more of them out there. Good hunting!

 

[fishguy85]

hovhanh,

You might look into using two liter soda pop bottles to hatch the brine in. Cheap and easy to clean (just recycle them!).
Just drill a 1" hole in the bottom. Build a way to stand them up on their caps, add water, salt and brine cysts, aerate and you are good to go. The neat thing is how to separate the brine afterwards. Pull the air, let things settle for ten minutes, and hold the bottle over a sink, open the cap slightly. This allows any unhatched cysts to go past the cap, into the sink. Tighten the cap and squeeze the bottle very gently so that it begins to overflow out of the top hole. This washes away most of the empty shells. You now have the center section of water that contains most of the live brine - fastest way I've ever seen to separate them! I would not use this method for crtical use such as feeding baby clownfish.

 

[hovhanh]

fishguy85,

Thanks for the post. I will try this out when I get the chance. How much salt do you use?

 

[block head]

or try the ghetto fab way. 40 oz in a window. i like using old tank water. don't over think this. i spilled eggs and a little water on the counter . next day,little swimmers. your toilet is cleaner than the lakes these guys come from.

 

[appleepiee]

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/dec2002/breeder.htm

Check it out, it was posted by FMarini on The Fish Breeding Forum.

 

[bubbly]

This is not DIY, but I have read very good things about it in terms of simplicity:

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/c9/Hatchery-Dish-p183.html

One thing to note: apparently if you don't use bleach or some similar method to decapsulate the shrimp eggs, you have a high risk of hydroids coming into your tank along with the baby brine.

If this is for a reef tank, hydroids can be just about impossible to get rid of, so fyi