Inexperience Is An Asset. A Planted Journal.

[FishFanatic04]

Ok, I am seeing a lot of places saying it's about 3 days to hatch. Today is day 2, I will be keeping an eye out anyway. The good news is that they take about 7-9 days to go free swimming so if they last this long, I have plenty of time to get my BBS routine down. I'll try to time it so that I have some ready.

Once they go free swimming, supposedly they will easily take the bbs and other food "mulm" from the bottom. Learning in a hurry folks Trying to cross check everything I read as well.


Edit: Correction...the free swimming stage may be much faster then this. It is so hard doing this kind of research. Every source has different information. I will be keeping my own time log, so I will have my own answers.

 

[DevotedToDiscus]

OK. Here is what you need:

2 x small plastic bottles( you only want 300-500ml of water so narrow bottles are best)
air pump and line with a T section to split between the bottles.
salt(any will do, no need to get fancy)
Bicarbonate of soda(baking powder)
Small syringe(6ml) with 5 inches of airline pushed on the end.
A metal coffee filter.

You need dual hatcheries running at 48 hour intervals. This is because your shrimp will hatch after 24-30 hours, and only live(unless fed) for about 24 hours. So you will be doing staggered hatches to ensure a constant supply.

The setup you have is OK, buy you need to really concentrate the shrimp egg to water ratio, or you will have a job harvesting them.

Use 300-500ml of water, and add 2 teaspoons of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Give it a good stir and pour it in your bottle(with the neck cut off). Have your airline at the bottom(no air stone), and this will keep the eggs in suspension. Add 1/2-1 teaspoon of eggs. Have it somewhere warm, 25-30C.

After 24 hours your first batch will start hatching, at this point add eggs to the second bottle. Bottle number 1 will now have live shrimp for the next 24 hours, which can be harvested. In the mean time bottle number 2 is working.

To harvest your shrimp: Switch of the air, and wait 5-10 minutes. The egg shells will float, and the unhatched eggs will sink. Between the 2 will be an orange cloud, these are your baby brine shrimp. Dip you airline attached to your syringe into the cloud and draw them into the syringe. Now squirt them into the coffee filter and rinse them in fresh water. This will remove the salt(don't want to be dumping salt on your fry). Dip your coffee filter, slightly, in fresh water and again using you syringe draw up the shrimp.

Now you have a syringe full of baby brine shrimp and clean fresh water.

Squirt them slowly at the fry, and they will gobble them up!

 

[FishFanatic04]

Awesome! So, I didn't need the airstone. I also need to switch my light bulb. I had one of the energy efficient bulbs in the lamp and it does not put out enough heat.


I'll have to drink a lot of soda today for the second bottle! Thanks. Very clear guide.

I am concerned on the temperture of my tank. It should have been at least 80 degrees. I have raised the temperature even more.


I read somewhere that you can freeze baby brine shrimp and that the fry can eat that after a few weeks.

 

[DevotedToDiscus]

Yes on freezing. Harvest the remaining shrimp near the 24 hour point before the die. Rinse as normal and then put them in an ice cube tray. You can then pop out an ice cube and let it thaw as needed.

Sorry about using the metric system, but am sure you can do the math

 

[FishFanatic04]

haha. ml's are easy enough. Thanks to Seachem Prime Very clear. I am going to get 2 smaller bottles and try this out.


I am pretty sure my first batch has hatched. I will be testing it out in a bit. It is good I have done a practice run. Now I'm also about to go read up on microworms.


This is certainly the best part of fishkeeping.

 

[Biulu]

Congratulations FF! Was away this weekend and missed it completely! How are mom and the eggies doing?

 

[FishFanatic04]

Hey! They are good as far as I can tell. Its a very awkward angle to view. I have to turn off the filtrr and zoom down through the tank. I dunked mg camera yesterday lol

Anyway she is on guard. I hope the eggs hatch within a day

Im so happy with this Ram momma. I wish I could hug her haha!

 

[Biulu]

I am glad everything is going well at last! I know how you feel; even if the eggs don't make it, the very fact that they spawned is already great! It seems though that your ram mum is better than my angel mum; if your eggs make it to day 2, they are very likely to hatch!

 

[FishFanatic04]

It is very close to the 48 hour mark. She's still looking really good and defensive. Even the father is hovering underneath the wood and chasing cories away.


Just got a picture. Only three white eggs from what I can see. She may have removed the one saw yesterday. I also dunked the camera again a little

My neighbor's son wanted to mow our grass so I had to go out and get some cash for him and thought I'd get two plastic bottles for bbs. Unfortunately, because I am usually pretty ditzy. I bought 2 20 oz. diet MOUNTAIN DEWS. THE bottles are GREEN. I'm such a doofus. SO now I am caffeinated at least.

yesterday/today. They are darker. Too bad the angles of the photos are different.

 

[Salam]

So cool, it's all happening Really looking forward to the hatchery story.

 

[FishFanatic04]

I'm scared.

 

[FishFanatic04]

La la la! I just did my first harvest of baby brine shrimp on my practice. It went pretty well. I got water everywhere, tasted salt at some point which probably means I ate a shrimp or 100, and managed to get a nice puddle of shrimps on the coffee filter.

I rinsed them really well and have the in the freezer in a small amount of water. THere was a little left so I rinsed them and squirted the into the qt tank for fun. Wanna see a few guppies go insane? lol


SO I guess I should be watching for them to hatch...wait 2 days and then start up a rotation...does that sound alright?>

 

[Biulu]

Wow, so exciting! It looks like the parents and the eggs are still going strong. What time will you be out of bed tomorrow to see wrigglers?!

 

[FishFanatic04]

lol I may not be able to sleep

I watched her lay them, and watched him fertilize. I wish I could watch them hatch! We'll see. Maybe the we wait until the 72 hour mark

 

[FishFanatic04]

They haven't hatched yet. I'll be watching them like a hawk today! The momma seems to be hovering in to them tighter.