Hatching Brine Shrimp

[R_Hudson]

Well I went to the LFS yesterday and bought some Decomp'd brine. and in an attempt to hatch them, I bought at the LFS advice an air stone and a small air pump. Now for the tricky part the instructions that came with these shrimp is confusing at least for me. USE 1tsp/L of seawater in a cone shaped container at 20-35ppt. well in not knowing what exactly that meant. I took a small Ziploc container and put some of my tank water in it then put some brine in and i have been letting this run for almost 12 hrs now. is this correct? or did i screw up?

[fantastic4]

simple hatching notes:

brine eggs just need salt water, room temperature (close to 78 or 80 for even better hatch rate), agitated water (air pump) and 24 hours.

hard part, get the shrimp and not the shells or icky water

lots of devices online to help hatch and seperate eggs, even new shel-less shrimp eggs exist. would reccomend buying a shrimp mesh screen to help sift the shrimp when you pour out the water.

it's really easier than it sounds, just find a technique that works for you

[R_Hudson]

Thanks i figured it was easier than it sounds

[Cshradr7]

for one, you need to shine a light on it both for warmth and for the light. for two, the micro bubbles produced by an airstone will kill the BBS so dont use that. and for three, if you just let the water sit after the eggs have hatched, the unhatched eggs will sink to the bottom, live ones just above that, and hatched eggs will be floating.

here is how i hatch them for my freshwater tanks.

take a 2 liter pop bottle and cut the bottom off. poke a hole in the bottom that you just cut off so you can put a piece of stiff airline through it. either invert the bottle in a mason jar or hang it so its upsidedown. add the following to the upside down bottle:
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of eggs
2 cups of warm water

with all of this in the bottle, put the bottom that you cut out back on the bottle backwards (upsidedown), so the bottle is sealed. put a piece of stiff airline through the hole that you poked in the bottom so it goes all the way down and touches the cap. connect the airline to a pump so it can bubble. shine a light on it, i use a 100w incandecent desk light about 5 inches away, and let it go for about 18-24 hours.
once finished, turn off the pump and water and let sit, but leave the airline in the bottle. you'll notice the layers that i talked about earlier begin to form nicely after about 15 min. use the airline as a siphon and suck all the brine shrimps out into another cup. before adding the shrimp to the tank, use a brine shrimp net, available at any pet store, and separate them from the water that they were hatched in.

when you buy brine shrimp eggs, be sure the buy the highest hatch out rate eggs as possible. i buy mine from www.brineshrimpdirect.com and get the premium eggs with a 95%+ hatch rate