Hatching brine shrimps successfully.

If your tank doesn't have a light, you can focus a table-lamp or any other light source on to the hatcher tube, as long as the cysts receive 5-6 hours minimum light. I do my hatching during the day with 12 hours of light simply because the aquarium light's on anyway. When you start feeding the fry the shrimps, the tiny fish are actually frightened of them, and many won't go near them as the pin-head shrimps spiral and gyrate their way to the tank bottom, once the shrimps enter the fresh water they die after a few hours. To stop this waste, pour the salt mix containing the hatched shrimps into your brine shrimp net over a bowl free of detergents. The bowl will collect the salt mix solution and the shrimps that haven't been trapped by the net the first time. Turn the net inside-out over a second bowl containing water from the breeding tank then gently shake the shrimps off inside the water. I use a small nozzled syringe, if you haven't got one just syphon them out of the bowl by using a clear length of plastic tubing, you can direct them amongst the fry for contolled feeding. Once they learn how to chase-catch-consume and get their first taste of succulent shrimps, there's no stopping them. Preparing the sea mix for best results. Once the fry become (amended) 9-14 days old they will no longer be sustainable on either Liquifry/Infusoria cultures alone. If you can't produce a regular supply of newly hatched shrimps, the fry will start to die off rapidly from lack of nourishment. Prepare 1 litre of sea mix, you can use this for four seperate hatches using the hatcher tube shown below. Mix for full strength, approximately 35 grams (5 teaspoons) of sea salt per litre of water. If you are in a soft water area the addition of 1½ grams of Bicarbonate of Soda per litre of seawater will help to raise the alkalinity to the required seawater value of 8.5 pH, use a pH test kit till you obtain this reading, otherwise you may get a poor hatch-per-egg ratio. The hatching time depends on the seawater mix and the light time illuminating the tube. Generally speaking tropical fish are usually kept between 24°C-75°F (26°C-78°F) any of those temperatures will do, preferably the later. The brine shrimp eggs must be kept suspended or agitated in the seawater by means of air bubbles supplied from an air-pump, otherwise they will just sink to the bottom of the cone and lie there dormant and won't hatch out. It's a good idea to use an air-line tubing clamp to regulate the amount of air that's entering the tube bottom cone, as seen in the graphic. The hatchery kit supplies all your needs bar the air-pump.     Click here or graphic to order PS I buy all my kit using the postal order payment system from this Company.

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The above illustrations from the makers show the sequence for hatching brine shrimps, but I don't go for it. Personally I make up a batch of the seawater mix and pour it into the hatcher tube first, then add the eggs. Every item including the seawater must be clean and free of soaps, grease, and dirt particles for a successful hatch, the hatcher tube should be washed out with luke warm water after every use, this gets rid of the brine oil residue. Chart on the left shows the range of pH 8+ for the sea water mix. Possible reasons for failed or poor hatch. Not giving the hatchery tube enough quality light, go for 12 hours. Salt sea-mix either too weak or too strong, use pH test kit. Dirty hatcher tube and contaminated sea-mix. keep both clean. Too low or high water temperatures, too many eggs in the tube.