raising brine shrimp

[Howieytown]

I have a tall 37 gallon tank, already cycled and planning on it being a "slow swimmer" tank. Pipefish, maybe sea horses and some other peaceful critters.
I have been using an in the tank brine shrimp hatcher and I need to know how to get the brine to grow larger. They hatch good and I've been using the babies to feed some corals but my goal would be to get them large enough for my other fish and possibly the carnivores in the 37 also.
Do the babies need to be moved out of the hatcher and to a bigger tank? I've also used the artemia food in the hatcher with the babies but they dont seem to live past about four days.
thanks ahead of time for any answers~~

[jcatblum]

I never use an in tank hatcher, but after I harch my brine I strain the BBS and put them in "new" saltwater. I feed them an assortment of stuff, mainly whatever I have on hand. I usually just put a bubbler in the tank they are growing out in, and I really don't worry about light for them.

[Samala]

Right, I wouldnt use in tank hatchers either, too much question of leaking out hatch water into the main tank.

Brine is usually pretty easy to get to grow up to at least half size. Small tank, 2.5gal even or just some quart jars, and an airline, no stone, are all the equipment really needed. Add either live phyto, one of the phyto sources (phytofeast, phytoplex or other) or you can use powdered spirulina (precisely that or something commercially offered). I would gut load the brine heavily before feeding out to your tank.. beta glucan, vibrance (oceanrider.com), astaxanthin/naturose, +/or selco.

I dont worry about lights either, just the aeration and water movement. No filters, add back evap of course and replace with old tank water when you harvest.

You might want to look into culturing copepods too. Same general procedure, and they are more nutritional from the start so enriching isnt quite so crucial.

>Sarah

[rayjay]

First of all, you should know that hatching the brine in contact with tank water can spread harmful bacteria that can sometimes be on the cysts. Even Brine Shrimp Direct advises rinsing the nauplii before adding them to the tank.
Raising brine shrimp to any significant numbers can be a PITA.
Decent densities of brine lead to degraded water conditions and many times, culture wipe out.
It took me a long time to develop the ability to consistantly produce live adult brine shrimp, and if I could buy them around here, I wouldn't bother.
They will grow on many different foods, but to have decent nutrition they should be fed on products like Tahitian Blend cryopaste, or phytoplankton of differing types. Feeding on things like yeast will grow them but they will need to be gut loaded with Selco type products to provide nutrition for your intended users.
There are excellent links to informative sites at the bottom of my brine shrimp page on my web site.
RAISING BRINE SHRIMP

[Howieytown]

thanks for the help! I think I'll use a small tank and put the in tank hatcher in that, once they hatch i can just move the babies into the aquarium to grow.
One heater and one air pump that way.

[rayjay]

First off, I wouldn't want the hatching water to contact the "raising" water, and would rinse the newborns before placing them in the "raising" water.
Second. a tank isn't as good for raising them as the circulation is not conducive to keeping the food in suspension unless you are using live phytoplankton. It also makes it hard to siphon out the brine shrimp without siphoning out too much crap with them, when doing water changes.
Containers tapering to a point are best, with inverted pop bottles, working about second best.
Up till I put the shrimp in the 5g water bottles or in the 20g garbage pails, I use a styrofoam container and put my bottles in water in that container with a heater in the bath water. That way I can do up to six gallons with one heater. (after hatching the cysts in a pop bottle, I like to use the gallon jars for raising the brine, and by tilting the jar and leaning it against the side of the styrofoam container, the rigid air tube can sit at the low point for good circulation)
You can also use more than one container with only one pump by splitting the air line and adding little plastic flow valves in each line.
Lastly, you might need to call upon all the patience you've learned to master in this hobby, just to succeed with raising brine shrimp.
Hopefully your learning curve will be shorter than mine was.

[DebsSisterFlo]

one of my lfs just recently started selling bags of brine shrimp for $2. Would that be ok as a treat for the seahorses, like once a month or something? I'm just afraid they'd go off of their frozen food if I were to offer brine on top of the (hopefully) pod population.

[rayjay]

I don't add live brine to the horse tank any more than once a week and so far, they still eat the frozen brine, mysis, ocean plankton.
Before you feed the brine to your seahorses, it would be best to gut load them for at least an hour but best for 2 hours, with a product like Selco, or Tahitian Blend, and if not those, at least fog the water with a spirulina ball made up of crushed spirulina balled up in a rag and massaged in the shrimp water.