Baby Brine shrimp care and storage

[Toyfreek]

Ok,
Ive read everything i can find and still have a few questions.
after hatching the BBS and seperating the shells from the rest of the water should the water be areated for the BBS? or should they be refrigerated? how lond do they last?
Also there is no way i can catch Barney ive tried several times and im afraid I'll stress him to the point of aborting his clutch of eggs hes on day 15 now. he just keeps shooting down into the rockwork. ive tried waiting till he's sleeping but he never sleeps it seems. should i let him spit into my reef and try and catch the bangers with a net or dismantle my reef?
Thats about it I guess, thanks in advance.
Matt

[Toyfreek]

^

[FMarini]

Matt:
Sorry i didn't get to this eariler i have a NIH grant deadline 1 feb, and its getting real close......

So lets see simple ones first.
As far as catching your male, please search back thru the archives in this forum, and search for a few threads w/ GUY as the poster. He described in detail his method of capturing his male, its appears to work and has been repeated by others.

M::>>after hatching the BBS and seperating the shells from the rest of the water should the water be areated for the BBS?
yes, they require areation, they also require food, i believe w/in a few hrs after hatching they deplete their food supply. You have to start enriching them right away.
M::>>should they be refrigerated?
this is not critical however they may last a little longer. I personally didn't refrigerate them.
M::>>how lond do they last?
I suspect one hatching will last about 1 week as long as you feed them and exchange water. For me i used them so quick its never a problem. I can refer you to the 97 reefs.org article where i describe my brine shrimp hatchery setup. In brief i had 3 or 4 2L soda bottles cut open and I had sally hatch mixes in each one. one package =1L=3days of food . I staggered the hatches so i alway had fresh BBS read to roll.
i used Selcon to enrich the BBS, and when phytoplanktons became availble i used them in combination w/ the Selcon.

M::>>Thats about it I guess, thanks in advance.
I hope that helps
frank

[Toyfreek]

Yes i read your articles but i just had a few more questions.
My only negative about the articles is they were far too short :)
Im getting pretty nervous that he will spit em out early, as far as i can tell they haven't hatched yet (day16) no tails comming out of barneys mouth. I got a fish trap at the LFS we'll try it tonight.
Thanks again,
Matt

[Sally]

I don't expect you will see tails around day 16....mine carried for 29 days last time and I didn't see the baby fish in his mouth till day 26... I would think that if your card is at day 16 he wll carry to term. Good luck!

[tstone]

Matt~Were you able to catch him?

[Toyfreek]

the trap caught everything but fish!
Peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, Mithrax crab-twice, hermits, and two really cool orange crabs that im assuming are bad guys for now. anyway nope did not catch Barney or any other fish for that matter. An Entimologist friend i have suggests Cyclobenzaprine in a week solution to make them sleep alittle harder......I dont think so
I think I'll let him spit into the reef and try and save as many as i can. there are only 4 fish 2 bangaii, 1pajama cardinal, 1 coral beauty only a pepermint shrimp as a predator in the tank mabey i can be fast enough.