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Hatching brine shrimp - fresh water


lmsmith

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I have a FW tank that's currently waiting on fish and put about 1/4 ts of brine shrimp eggs into there, just to see what would happen.

I wasn't really expecting much because brine shrimp need SW to hatch, but now I have a whole bunch of brine shrimp in my FW tank.

Will they survive long term, or will the FW kill them?

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Shouldn't be particularly hard. I haven't pH tested but this area is usually just above 7, and the tank is planted and has dw so I would imagine it's slightly soft and acidic.

I really wasn't imagining anything happening, but I though a few dead eggs would at least turn into ferts for the plants if nothing else!

Also hatched some in salt water (1.026sg) and they were in the dark with no water movement - this one wasn't intentional, my bubbler died and the cat almost knocked over the bottle they were in, so bf put them in the pantry to keep them safe.

Of course, the hatch rates aren't good as usual but seeing as I expected zero, it's kind of amazing.

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wow, I agree, the iPhone sucks....

hrmmm.... im assuming someone else will weigh in here but untill then

Brine shrimp hatching solutions

Would you believe fresh-water brine shrimp? This sounds like a contradiction in terms but it works. I tried hatching both decapsulated and regular brine shrimp eggs in water without salt and discovered that they hatch just fine in plain, unsalted water, as long as there is some baking soda added to incease the PH enough to help an enzyme they release to dissolve a hole in their cysts. The advantage of doing so is that when they are added to the fry tank, they don't experience a large osmotic shock from going form salt to fresh water. The brine shrimp hatched in fresh water tend to last longer in the fry tank, which seems to confirm the advantage.

I also tried hatching brine shrimp in water with no baking soda (used to bring the PH up into the 8-9 point range). It didn't work. The high alkalinity is needed to help them dissolve part of their egg case. Decapsulating does not help.

from http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/brineshrimp.htm

the part about them lasting longer seems interesting

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Hmm. It's possible the pH is much higher than I thought, but I doubt it. Might grab a pH test kit tomorrow and see what it is just for interest's sake.

I'm hopefully going to get them to grow a bit bigger before fish get in here. They can hunt them down!

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lol, add some baby guppies, then you get twice the fun :P

I normally use the Aqua one test to get a fair idea then use the API brand to get an accurate result.\

also make sure you wash the tubes out properly before use as the salts from the water drying inside the tubes can alter results

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My bumblebee gobies went crazy for the newly hatched brine shrimp, but it would be nice to provide them with something a bit bigger. In order to make them bigger, I'll need to feed them. Any ideas what to feed them? I was thinking of starting a green water culture, what do you think?

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