emilai333

Two years ago I tried hatching baby brine shrimp for my bettas. Long story short, not enough aeration, I think I picked out 5 shrimps that hatched. Miserable failure. Well, when I bought the eggs that time, I got 3 packs. So yesterday I thought, oh what the heck, may as well see if these will hatch, after two years in my basement, my trunk, and under my bed.
Hatching was a success, I now have more bbs than I know what to do with. I'm feeding them some yeast (I remember this from raising "sea monkeys" as a kid) because I figure, my goldfish are big enough to eat adult brine shrimp - I don't have any fry atm which would require bbs. Anyway, in the interim, I was a bit leery about whether my goldies would even notice such tiny things in their tank, but I dumped about a half-tablespoon in. The first goldfish seemed to go, "What? Little squiggly things? What are these? Hmm, smaller than my mouth, must be food... OMG YUM. OMG guys you have GOT to try this stuff." and off they went. I put a tiny amount in with my bumblebee goby and Mr. Picky Eater perked right up and got busy tasting any unlucky enough to get near his "cave" (a tea candle vase surrounded by plants). I can't wait to see what my new killies think, but they're still acclimating so no food until tomorrow.

So first of all, I am AMAZED that these eggs were still viable after the abuse of 2 years wandering through my stuff. Secondly... Wow even my piggy goldies have never been so thrilled with food!

Chief_waterchanger

Good job Emilai!

It is sooo cool seeing the instinctual hunting behavior just click in a fish, isn't it? It is like they go from being nice every day swimming fish to monster fish set on a mission that they will not fail.

Allie

Especially Malawi african cichlids aka gluttons. Like my 4 cats at treat time. All at one end of the tank looking at me like: FEED ME!!
Congrats on the brine shrimp!! In no time you'll be overwhelmed with them.

Lucy

I can't believe they hatched after 2 years! Funny story, you're fish will be looking for more. lol

COBettaCouple

Cool.. it's something how they could stay good so long.

emilai333

Thanks all - yes, I'm shocked at how well the hatch went, I was really expecting that none would hatch. But the fish are happy they did. I fed more today (hey, get it while its hot!) and gave some to my gardneri (killifish), too. The albinos swam around together, snatching up shrimp as they went... it was really cute. They're young and watching them is a little like watching a boy with his first girlfriend... like sometimes he doesn't know where to put his fins. But they seem happy with each other, when they're resting they're always right next to each other (I don't know, maybe they were kept in tanks full of fish and aren't comfortable by themselves yet).
The (fully grown) Biassa were also hilarious, because that male was having a hard time deciding whether he'd rather eat or mate. The female was adament that eating must come first, as she has no eggs (nor should she after 4 days without food!), so she probably got most of the shrimps.