Aerate brine shrimp eggs in fresh water before adding salt

[gweesm1]

Aerate brine shrimp eggs in fresh water before adding salt

Hi all,

Just thought of sharing. For those who are facing difficulties in hatching their brineshimp egg please read the website. http://groups.msn.com/Breedingtropic...neshrimps.msnw

It has been recommended in quite a number of websites that by aerating the eggs first in tap/fresh water for an hour before adding salt will improve the hatch rate, some websites stated that it will shorten the hatching time and nothing was mentioned on hatch rate. All the websites I read did not explain the reason and I am going to try to explain this.

As mention in my earlier post on decapsulating Brineshrimp eggs, the last step is to draw water (dehydrate) out of the eggs by using brine water to stop the hatching process. Salt are used in many areas to dry things using the principal of osmosis(is it? I think so. Can’t remember my primary school science). In order for the Brineshrimp eggs to hatch, the eggs need to be hydrated, water need to enter the eggs. By using fresh water, the water is drawn into the eggs faster than using brine water. Thus this will shorten the who process by a few hours, (my guess). If brine water is used, theoretically water is drawn out instead; however the brine solution we use for hatching is not concreted enough to prevent water from entering the eggs or strong enough to draw any water out of the eggs that has been hydrated using fresh water. It will only slow down the process. (I had read in some websites stating that by using lower salt will shorten hatch rate. I can’t remember which, but will post it when I see it again)

I am not a very technical person, but I guess this is how it works. If anyone has other opinions please share. I know Loh use higher concentration of salt for better hatch rate. Personally I had been using low concentration since day one.

Regards
Siameng

[CM Media]

I usually add the salt and the brineshrimp eggs together. The salt will take sometime to melt thus the eggs are actually expose to fresh water for about 5 minutes. I think this contributes to very successful hatches that I've always experience. Within a day, I had a 'full hatch'.

This means that I can't keep the brineshrimp in the hatching container as they will start to die off on the second day. I suspect that they die of hunger as I don't feed them.

[gweesm1]

Hi Au,

I had managed to keep Brineshrimp alive for 3 to 4 days in the fridge when I first started with killes.

Not able to keep the BBS for more than 1 day in the hatchery?
I don’t think they will die of hunger; BBS will only start feeding on the second day when they deplete their yolk supply. That is also the reason why freshly hatch BBS is the most nutritious.

If you have the intention to keep your BBS for more than one day after they hatch, you will have to filter them and rinse them with tap water. It is necessary to prepare a new salt solution, as the hatching water will encourage bacterial boom as the energy used to break through the shell cause some waste in the water (Some websites touch on this). Aerate them very gently when you place them back to hatchery again, you don’t need strong aeration, as you are not hatching them. You might kill them if the aeration is too strong. You can start feeding on the second day. I am able to maintain the culture for at least 3 days in the hatchery. If the population is low, I am able to grow them to adult size in about 15-18 days. (Depending on what I feed them)

Regards,
Siameng

[CM Media]

The problem with me is I've too many killifish to take care and worst still, with 2 kids to handle. I usually have to hatch alot of Brineshrimps for my killifish. So you can imagine how crowded my hatchery is. When I off the air supply, the whole soluton is red in colour. To give a better picture, I use the brineshrimp(daily hatch) to feed to a population of around one thousand fishes daily.