Growing out Brine

[laga77]

I have been hatching BBS on a daily basis to feed my reef tanks for over a year. I am now setting up a seahorse tank and need to grow the brine to adult stage. I am using a 10G with a sponge filter in it. I add enough home grown phytoplankton to keep the water a light green. It has lighting on a 12 hour timer. Using a rotifer sieve, I can remove water for WC without losing any BS. Am I missing anything else? My SH tank is cycling now so I have a couple of weeks to get a culture going. Before feeding I am planing on enriching with Selcon. Anybody know what size netting to use to harvest adults and leave the babies behind?

 

[rsisvixen]

I keep mine in a clear plastic tub with just an air bubbler, I don't do water changes, I feed phyto and I don't use a light, natural ambient light in the room seems to work fine. Mine are full grown and breeding. I've found they do better in slightly "dirty" water than in pristine conditions. And to catch adults there is a brine shrimp net made for that purpose, most pet store should carry it.

 

[ichthyogeek]

The net that rsisvixen mentions is for catching BBS, not BS. Any regular fish store net should do, as adults are around that big. However, I'm wondering why you need to grow the adults out? Seahorses actually do better with a staple of mysis, not adult brine.

Look for my thread on growing out artemia. There's some helpful information there.

 

[sumer]

Growing Artemia nauplii to adult stage is really not a cost effective way of doing it. Just to tell you the scale of my operation, I harvest BBS three times a day (means three hatcheries going at the same time). I have tried it enough times but buying in bulk from LFS always seems to be a cheaper option.
And as someone said, you really don't need adult artemia for seahorses. If they are captive bred, they should be taking frozen mysis.

 

[rsisvixen]

The net that rsisvixen mentions is for catching BBS, not BS. Any regular fish store net should do, as adults are around that big. However, I'm wondering why you need to grow the adults out? Seahorses actually do better with a staple of mysis, not adult brine.

Look for my thread on growing out artemia. There's some helpful information there.

Nope, the net is for adults and sub adults as per this link, not the sieve that catches bbs

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/brine-shrimp-net-p178.html

 

[touchingstoves]

Check out seahorsesource they have different size seives. What you're prob looking for is micron mesh netting. They have it and made. I use it to feed to my SH fry. I would also take heed to BS as they provide no nutritional value unless correctly gut loading them which you will need to feed the BS 2 hours - pref 4 max to gut load them but not more than that because they harbor tons of bacteria. Bacteria is very bad for SH. Vibrio etc.

Someone mentioned above you were getting CB seahorses? -Most CB seahorses are trained to feed on frozen mysis an exception is CB dwarves H. Zosterae (ask the breeder what brand, my pref is PE mysis cube form. Stays fresh longer)

What type of SH are you looking to purchase?

 

[billiamstearns]

What type of seahorse are you thinking of...I live in Ct and I seem to always have seahorses....but only for people that have proper conditions.....after all the are my little friends....FYI I do have some that just turned 3 months old today and are trained to eat mysis out of a small dish.....also trained to know that when i tap a few times on the tank with my turkey baster....food is a coming!!! I do that to every seahorse from birth.....so when they feel that tapping they come a running....I mean a swimming


https://youtu.be/9MW8fZH1OKE

 

[Louis Z]

Billiamstearns. What do you use to enrich your adult brine? I saw in your YouTube video that you use adult brine

 

[ThRoewer]

Growing them out is actually quite easy. I did the first stage in a 1 gallon Container Store shoe box and the final grow out in a 99 liter tote.
The trick is to do daily 100% water changes during the larva stages and feed well. After they are through their larva stages you can put them in a bigger container for grow out.
I did it on the balcony. As soon as they are large they will reproduce on their own.
Though if you need a lot you will have to continue with the first stage.
I did this for pipefish and mandarins. Though after they started eating frozen food I stopped the intensive culture and just let the tote run on its own.

 

[Harth23]

If you keep the water green with photo all the time would this not be gut loading them enough or is that not good enough?

 

[laga77]

If you keep the water green with photo all the time would this not be gut loading them enough or is that not good enough?

Most phyto is of the Nanochloropsus type which does not contain enough of the proper nutrients for the BS to consume. Therefore, people use food designed especially for this like, Dan`s Feed.

 

[pilot.darren]

great advice

 

[CoryWM]

I am looking to get Brine shrimp back up and breeding again. I think I need to find a better way to feed them. In the past I tried spirulina powder, yeast etc. Like I would for a freshwater daphnia culture. In small numbers this worked fine. But when numbers got high it would crash. Not from water quality either.

I never tried selcon etc. But Also needs to be semi cost effective. Any tips on foods at a mass production level would be helpful.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I've hear positive reviews on spirulina powder, but I've yet to use it. Dead stuff (yeast, powders, egg yolk, etc.) will increase metabolic wastes (NH3, NO2, NO3, etc), but will also increase waterborne bacterial count to feed brine shrimp. However, could it possibly be an acidity and/or oxygen content problem? Can you define high numbers and container size?

 

[erndog1001]

I've been playing around with raising them for about 6 months or so now. And i've had varying degrees of success. But I think I've got a good routine going now.
I've had a batch going now for about 2 months steady. I harvest a couple of small net fulls(just a regular net catches the adults and leaves the small ones behind) every few days or so and I add BBS to the mix about every week or so.
I keep them in a small tank with a heater and airstone. The only light is from windows or when I turn on the lights. I change about a gallon of water like twice a week.
I feed them from a colony of Rotifers and I also use a great product that I found.
Its called Roti-Rich from Florida Aquafarms. You can get it in powder or liquid form. I use the powder myself. It makes a very densely packed soup of phytoplankton and mixed with vinegar to lower the PH Keeps in the frig for a very long time.
I just recently started a Nannochloropsis culture that is doing very well. I plan to experiment with feeding it to my Rotifers in a few more days.