acropora1981
New member
Now, onto brine shrimp decapsulation. Its quite simple. My method comes from Sprung And Delbeeks Reef Aquarium Vol. 3...but there are many links you can google brine decapsulation...
What I do though is soak about 3grams of brine shrimp in 300 ml of cold tap water in a gatorade bottle for an hour, stirring every few minutes. Then I add 180 ml of plain unscented bleach (try to find one around 4% or 5% sodium hypochlorite -basically any plain household bleach). Within about 7 minutes the mixture will change from brown, to white, and then to a yellowy brown. At this point you strain the brine shrimp through a fine mesh net (I use a sieve designed for rotifers), but you can use any very fine mesh net...it has to be around 100 micron or so i believe, or the brine with just go right through. So then I rinse the brine in tap water until most of the bleach smell is gone. Then I put it in a cereal bowl, add some tap water, and add a bunch of white vinegar(neutralizes any remaining bleach). I let it sit with vinegar for like 5 minutes, then I strain the brine out again and rinse with more tap water. The I get a new gatorade or water bottle and make a saturated salt solution in it. The decapsulated brine is put into the super salty water and stored in the fridge. when i want some, i just strain a bit out and put it in the hatchery.
I have a link with pictures, although the amounts they use are slightly different. But its useful to see the color changes (b/c it made me nervous the first time using bleach on fish food!!!) here's the link: http://www.killies.com/Decapsulating.htm
What I do though is soak about 3grams of brine shrimp in 300 ml of cold tap water in a gatorade bottle for an hour, stirring every few minutes. Then I add 180 ml of plain unscented bleach (try to find one around 4% or 5% sodium hypochlorite -basically any plain household bleach). Within about 7 minutes the mixture will change from brown, to white, and then to a yellowy brown. At this point you strain the brine shrimp through a fine mesh net (I use a sieve designed for rotifers), but you can use any very fine mesh net...it has to be around 100 micron or so i believe, or the brine with just go right through. So then I rinse the brine in tap water until most of the bleach smell is gone. Then I put it in a cereal bowl, add some tap water, and add a bunch of white vinegar(neutralizes any remaining bleach). I let it sit with vinegar for like 5 minutes, then I strain the brine out again and rinse with more tap water. The I get a new gatorade or water bottle and make a saturated salt solution in it. The decapsulated brine is put into the super salty water and stored in the fridge. when i want some, i just strain a bit out and put it in the hatchery.
I have a link with pictures, although the amounts they use are slightly different. But its useful to see the color changes (b/c it made me nervous the first time using bleach on fish food!!!) here's the link: http://www.killies.com/Decapsulating.htm
