Any advice on hatching and feeding BBS?

[rebe]

the availability of fish is superb. I don't know how the shipping is.

I'm very jealous of the fish scene in mainland Europe too! There is one company called masterfisch which has a large selection of fish and they ship to us here in Ireland. For any semi-uncommon plants there's a German place that seems great. They have a beautiful selection of inverts, fish and other creatures but they don't ship outside of Germany for those. Called Garnelo I think...

There aren't many places inside Ireland itself. There's a pet shop 30 minutes away with a miserable fish selection, always dead fish in every tank. Poor conditions.

Then there are two pet shops and a garden centre with pretty good although basic aquatics section. Livebearers, goldfish, the usual tetras, a few aenus corydoras, a few cichlids, a few loaches, a handful of SFF and plecos. Those are just over an hour away, but unaccessible to me without hitching a ride from friends or family until I've got my full drivers license.

There are a couple of fish shops 2-4 hours away, those have some nice marine fish, and some FW shrimp, but nothing new in terms of freshwater fish.

Then 4+ hours drive away there are a handful of pretty nice fish shops with the usual stuff and then some fish not found in other Irish places like a variety of rainbows, some rarer cichlids, different corydoras species, killifish, loaches, a wider selection of tetras and rasboras.

A reasonable selection of fish shops but for most part they may as well be in mainland Europe until I can drive myself. I have a lovely local friend and we've gone on a few road trips to those various places


The UK has a great selection according to what I find online, and mainland Europe has an even better fish scene.
For Christmas last year my family stayed in Amsterdam for a few days, and I went off on my own to visit an incredible place a few hours away. Brilliant public transport in the Netherlands I have to say.
They had so many fish I'd never heard of, it was incredible.
Lots of places ship fish and plants within mainland Europe, I dream of living there where so many options are at my finger tips!

For now I've got masterfisch and seahorse aquariums that delivers, and a few places I can visit with my friend or on my own when I can drive.
There are definitely other fish keepers with fewer options, I'm grateful for what I do have

 

[MuddyWaters]

I got one of those tray hatchers a couple years ago and it’s the cats meow . Another thing I use is the San Francisco Bay Brand hatching kit . That’s the thing that has a base you screw a pop bottle into and it bubbles from the bottom and you collect the shrimps out from too . I got both from www.brineshrimpdirect.com who has everything a guy might need in the way of brine shrimp eggs and supplies .

The shrimp eggs I got for this must be crap. I've tried another pass at the tray hatcher. The good thing is that after 12 hours, I already had some hatched that I was able to pull out and feed the fish with, while the rest kept going. The bad thing is that after 24 and then 36 hours, the remaining crop is very poor. I'm guessing it's the eggs and not this hatchery- I've read a lot of good reviews on it. oh well, I don't need a ton anyway, and they sent me this bottle of eggs gratis- maybe now I know why.

 

[MattW]

I don't know how the shipping is. My continental European friends keep telling me the aquarium hobby is in radical decline, with quality stores going under and availability of uncommon fish shrinking.

It's weird that. There was a boom during the pandemic in my area, especially with planted tanks. I think the idea of being inside all the time made people think of new hobbies or old ones to try again. I myself was one of them, Started in 2011 with a 28L then went absent from the hobby until 2020. But I guess since then, fewer new people have entered the hobby which has an impact on stores

 

[GaryE]

It's weird that. There was a boom during the pandemic in my area, especially with planted tanks. I think the idea of being inside all the time made people think of new hobbies or old ones to try again. I myself was one of them, Started in 2011 with a 28L then went absent from the hobby until 2020. But I guess since then, fewer new people have entered the hobby which has an impact on stores

I hope that is a new foundation. There has been a huge growth in interest in animals. Dogs and cats are way up there.

I think there's the level of the hobby where we get fishtanks and put ornamental fish in them. Then some oddball people like us on the fringes get interested in fish like your Sawbwa/Asian rummynoses, and start exploring what's in the hobby that stretches out our curiosity. It's where we go that has shrivelled up - the once wide trade in fish that aren't mass produced on the farms has lost most of its outlets.

I went to a brilliant store in east London before the pandemic. It had a wide range of the usual fish, but also a wall of tanks that held things I had never seen alive, and things I'd only seen a couple of times in all my years of peering into tanks. At one point not really long ago, there were several stores in Montreal that tried to have something different in every order - a tetra or barb customers had never seen before. That was an incentive to hop on the metro and do the rounds of the fish stores. There were a lot of aquarists who did that.

Then, it seemed the curiosity dried up. Store owners told me the unfamiliar had stopped selling. If they had a choice between a rarity and a common fish at the same price, only common would sell.

Most common fish are popular for a reason. They are fine creatures who've earned their reputation. But I do hope that as the COVID wave fishkeepers settle in for the long enjoyment of their hobby, we get a return of the "Whoah, look at this thing. I need to learn more about it". It'd be nice to see a 'decontraction' of offerings, and to see some of the really nice newly found tetras, barbs and others available. The farms seem to be selling them to Europe and Asia, but the English speaking world is lagging behind. Housing costs are high, most people are poorer and except for online life, leisure is frowned on.

 

[Back in the fold]

The shrimp eggs I got for this must be crap. I've tried another pass at the tray hatcher. The good thing is that after 12 hours, I already had some hatched that I was able to pull out and feed the fish with, while the rest kept going. The bad thing is that after 24 and then 36 hours, the remaining crop is very poor. I'm guessing it's the eggs and not this hatchery- I've read a lot of good reviews on it. oh well, I don't need a ton anyway, and they sent me this bottle of eggs gratis- maybe now I know why.

Got a little tip for you there Man . The eggs you got are fine . I got the same when I got mine . Do you keep them in a frost free freezer between uses ? You have to do that . Another thing I did was set my tray hatcher on a plant seedling heating mat . That extra little bit of warmth does wonders for hatch rate . Double check that you’re using the right ratio of salt to water and don’t use iodized salt . I use Morton Pickling and Canning Salt . It dissolves fast and completely and is cheap .

 

[MuddyWaters]

Got a little tip for you there Man . The eggs you got are fine . I got the same when I got mine . Do you keep them in a frost free freezer between uses ? You have to do that . Another thing I did was set my tray hatcher on a plant seedling heating mat . That extra little bit of warmth does wonders for hatch rate . Double check that you’re using the right ratio of salt to water and don’t use iodized salt . I use Morton Pickling and Canning Salt . It dissolves fast and completely and is cheap .

I put them in the fridge (based on the instructions on the label). I haven't had them very long - maybe 2 weeks- I'll move to the freezer, I guess, but not sure it'll help now LOL. I may have put too much salt this time. I use Morton's salt (no iodine)- I've used it on other batches of eggs with good results.

I use a 60 watt reptile heat lamp right above the hatchery- it keeps it warm. I also rotated it every 8 hours or so to try and make sure all the eggs got closer to the lamp (even though the lamp is bent right over the middle of it.

I think I'll try the 2 liter method with the same eggs just to see if there's a difference, but I think that container of eggs is no good. I had way better results from the SanFransisco brand, and I just keep them on the shelf under my tank.

 

[Back in the fold]

I put them in the fridge (based on the instructions on the label). I haven't had them very long - maybe 2 weeks- I'll move to the freezer, I guess, but not sure it'll help now LOL. I may have put too much salt this time. I use Morton's salt (no iodine)- I've used it on other batches of eggs with good results.

I use a 60 watt reptile heat lamp right above the hatchery- it keeps it warm. I also rotated it every 8 hours or so to try and make sure all the eggs got closer to the lamp (even though the lamp is bent right over the middle of it.

I think I'll try the 2 liter method with the same eggs just to see if there's a difference, but I think that container of eggs is no good. I had way better results from the SanFransisco brand, and I just keep them on the shelf under my tank.

Well , you’re doing everything right so I’m stumped . The purpose of keeping your eggs in a frost free freezer is to be sure they don’t draw any moisture . Moisture is death to brine shrimp eggs . One thing I read on www.brineshrimpdirect.com was to keep your eggs in the freezer but to keep a small , maybe a weeks supply , amount in the fridge because the ones you’re going to use right away should be slightly warmer . I get the premium grade eggs and I get good results . With my little tray hatcher I was able to feed some Neon Tetras I had fresh live brine shrimp every day . I get kind of mystified by all this sometimes because these eggs come from the Great Salt Lake in Utah at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains where it snows and they live and thrive there . What’s the story there ?

 

[GaryE]

I think the eggs/cysts are produced as temps fall. In the summer, the artemia roam. I imagine it's the same for my Chinese ones, and they are harvested for aquaculture in Canada and Russia. So cold is part of the life cycle.

I don't keep mine more than 24 hours after hatching. I hatch a bit less than a teaspoon every day, with one tablespoon of non iodized salt in a 1 ltr bottle. I feed 40 tanks with that. It's my fish splurge, at a bit less than 50 cents CAD a day.

 

[MuddyWaters]

That's the thing- a little goes a long way. The reason I had put so much in the tray was because I read something about freezing them into ice cubes when they hatch- thought I'd try that. I only make them once a week or once every other week- definitely a treat more than a staple. I feed all my fish a mix of Miracle Mini Bites from angelmania.net, another pellet brand (I forget the name, but the container is cool and it has 45% protein), tetra min color enhancing flakes (only in the big tank), my own color enhancing food that I got from aquariumscience.org (2 eggs & half teaspoon each of spirulina, that red algae that starts with "a", marigold powder, carrot powder) cooked, cooled, flattened & frozen in a bag, tubifex worms, frozen blood worms, sinking bug bites pellets for the corys & raphael (use this sparingly) and algae tablets (also for the cats, but the angelfishies eat them up). Oh, and I add a zucchini slice every other week or so. The only ones I feed every day or every other day are the MIracle Mini bites and the other pellets. The rest is mixed in as treats.

In the shrimp tank (now that I've dragged us into the subject), I feed them the occasional brine shrimp (for the endlers and tetras to eat, not trying to turn the cherries into cannibals), Miracle Mini bites (for the fish, but I'm sure the shrimp get a little), and I drop a few grains of Hikari shrimp cuisine at the bottom about once a week. On the "not normal" end of things, I add Bacter EA (half scoop) once per water change (about 1 per week now) and I put "Crispy Caves" made by the same guys who make Bacter AE in for them to hide in and eat. The Crispy caves is made of wood and other stuff that encourages bio-film. The shrimp love it. It also allows me to feel like they have something to eat, so it's easier NOT to feed them most days.

Not sure why I started typing all that- apologies for the hijack-