Baby brine shrimp

my guppy is pregnant and is due in about 2-3 weeks. so I have some time to prepare for them. but I have already bought the "first bites" for them but I herd that baby brine shrimp will help them grow faster and make their color show quicker. is this true and if so then where do I get baby brine shrimp? do I have to grow them?

 

hmm.. we got the shrimpery kit shown here:
and some tubes of 90% hatch BBS eggs (
)

what we did was used aquarium salt and treated tap water with some BBS eggs in the box with an air stone in it to keep the eggs moving around until it was time to collect the shrimp. when we collected the shrimp, we filled the plastic tube with treated tap water and put the lid on it, then put it into the spot on the box. the bbs are attracted to light so they swim up into the tube.

 

well I hate to buy things off the internet so do normal pet stores carrie these? or am I going to have to buy the off the internet

and also what is air stone?

 

Petsmart, at least, carries them. I would have to assume that a dedicated fish store would, too.

An airstone is a porous stone to which a tube is attached. The other end of the tube is attached to an air pump. Airstone goes in the water, air pump out of the water (tried it the other way, once, and ended up with crispy fried fish), power input end (normal people call it the plug) goes into the power output stations of the domicile (your house's electricity outlets), and it makes pretty bubbles, which also have the advantage of agitating and oxygenating the water.

hmmm...
...
...
I think that I may need to cut back on the Kool-Aid.

 

lol.......koolaid? lol that's hularious!!!

so which is better? those water filters that hook up on the side of the tank that filters the water and airates the water, or the airstone?

 

Well, they serve different functions, and usually compliment each oter. The filter than hangs on the side of the tank (or any filter) does three things: mechanical filtration, chemical filtration, and biological filtration. Mechanical filtration means cleaning out the gunk that collects in the tank (old fish food, dead plant leaves, etc) and keeping the water clear. Chemical filtration, usually done by activated carbon/charcoal, takes pollutants out of the water. Biological filtration is the most important of the three -- the filter provides one of the most important places for the bacteria that convert the ammonia that waste generates into nitrites and then nitrates, which partial water changes remove. See https://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm for a full explaination of this.

The filter does add some air back into the tank as it pumps the water back; air stones, however, do nothing BUT pump air into the tank. They're not absolutely necessary, but they do add a nice effect to the tank, and some fish love playing in the bubbles.

 

oh. so the filter I have is the way to go?

 

For your tank, yes -- for the brine fishery, you'd need the air pump. What kind of filter is it (make/model)?

 

petsmart may have the stuff for it.. they have the eggs at least and I think they also have a net for bbs so you could DIY a box and net out the bbs to put in the tank for the fish if you can find those.

 

Petsmart (at least the ones near me) have the entire "Just Add Water" kit, so it shouldn't be a problem. It seems to be a standard stocked item.

For this, you should only need the smallest air pump, and I have seen them for a few dollars, and the smallest air stones usually cost from fifty cents to a dollar, so the whole deal shouldn't be very expensive at all.

 

Look for the "bulk airstones". They're in a box together, all individually wrapped in plastic, like peppermints, heh. They only cost about 20¢ each.

 

I love those! I always grab a few when we're in there (if the box isn't empty).. good way to have plenty of spares on hand.

Look for the "bulk airstones". They're in a box together, all individually wrapped in plastic, like peppermints, heh. They only cost about 20¢ each.

 

Especially since they seem to fall apart every couple of months.

 

so how much is the air pump?

 

Depends on the size, and they're cheaper online. The smaller ones are under $10. Here's the type I like:

 

surprisingly enough, we get our air pumps at wally world.. it's like $6 or 7 for a 1-outlet pump or $10 for a 2-outlet pump.. we've had some running since January and no problems with any of them along with quiet operation.

so how much is the air pump?

 

can you just buy frozen baby brine shrimp. wouldn't that be easier

 

I think you can buy it, but it's much better for the fry, nutrition-wise, to have live BBS and some fry will only go after live BBS.

 

We just bought one of the BBs hatcheries...it works well but we ended up putting the eggs in a 3g. We had left over salt from our old sw tank we had so we had them going for the first 3 weeks until they started to died off. The baby kribensis were ready flakes by then. We fed them the bbs with a syringe & a piece of air line tubing attached to it. It collect the bbs well.

 

are there little kits were you can buy thay has everything you need. like the toobing,tank,air pump and brine shrimp eggs all together?

 

i'm not sure that there are total kits like that. But you can get the aquarium salt, air pump, air tubing and air stone at walmart and pick up the black box with collection container and the tubes of bbs eggs at petsmart probably. If you have a Dollar Tree there, you can pick up a set of measuring spoons to measure out the salt and bbs eggs.. or you can get those at walmart too.

 

I was in a local thrift store and found a San Francisco Bay Brand Shrimpery for $1! It is the complete kit, minus one packet of brine shrimp (so there's two instead of three). Wheee! Great buy, especially considering they're upwards of $10 at the LFS.

Now here comes my question...I know fry eat BBS, but I don't have any fry right now. Would my other fish eat the BBS? I have quite a variety of fish, ranging from black neons and harlequin rasbora, to bettas, to tiger barbs, to a goldfish, to an angelfish, to platies...I could go on, but I won't. lol So, should I shelf the BBS hatchery until I have fry (should be getting a female ram soon and kind of want to try raising any fry she and my male GBR have), or can I start feeding them to my fish now? x

 

I'd shelf it for now. IMO it's really a lot more useful for feeding fry.

 

Coolio. Well, at least I have it if I need it. And I just couldn't pass up the deal. Although, I was REALLY good this morning and passed up a complete Hex5 setup, minus a heater, for $5! I should have bought it 'cuz the filter on my Hex5 went out, but then I thought about it and I tore that tank down anyway, so there's no point in replacing something right now that I'm not using. By the time I get around to setting the Hex5 back up (leaning toward either an eventual shrimp haven or even a nano reef), I will be able to afford to replace the filter unit.

 

Oooh, for 5 bucks I might have picked that one up!

 

Breed them, set up a 10 gallon and fill it halfway with saltwater salinity of about .025 and a ph of about 8. The temp of the water about 83 degrees F, don't forget a breather. After they hatch remove the shells and don't feed them for about 2 to 3 days, for they feed from the embreyo in there shells. They will begin to breed within 10 to 15 days and can live up to 3 months. They will breed about every 3 times + in there life if you keep water clean (filter use) every batch from 1 can be between 90 to 400 offspring.

 

@ harpua...it was a HUGE temptation, but I already have two tanks sitting in my shed (my Hex5 and my 5gal bowfront), so I don't need a third.

@ sparkey...yeah, let's see...1-don't have a spare 10gal...2-don't have a spare heater (heck, I can't even re-'scape the 10gal I have for my HMDTPK betta because it doesn't have a heater and I can't afford a new one ATM)...3-WAY too much work when I can just buy frozen. lol I just figured if my other fish could/would eat the BBS, I'd start using it now.

 

I got some invaluable information from bizaliz3 earlier about hatching BBS to feed my angelfish fry (if they get to that stage!)

I was wondering if anyone else had experience in doing so? If so, did you have one or more hatcheries on the go? How did you do it? How many eggs did you hatch per batch? Anything else I need to know?

Thanks !

Just got my shell less eggs and they came with these instructions




Here's the issues I have

1) I live in the UK so nowhere will o be able to keep it that temperature.

2) I'll have to use artificial light

3) if they take 72 hours to hatch, what am I going to feed my fish when they're being hatched.. =\

4) if 1ml is 10,000 eggs how many ml do I hatch at a time

 

bizaliz3

Just got my shell less eggs and they came with these instructions

View attachment 191876

Here's the issues I have

1) I live in the UK so nowhere will o be able to keep it that temperature.

2) I'll have to use artificial light

3) if they take 72 hours to hatch, what am I going to feed my fish when they're being hatched.. =\

4) if 1ml is 10,000 eggs how many ml do I hatch at a time

72 hours is strange to me. Even all the people on youtube who have demonstrations and stuff say 48 hours.....I wonder if there is something different about the "brand" you got? I use the San Francisco Bay brand. But I can't imagine why the brand would make a difference. Mine all hatch in approx. 24 hours...

I don't know what temp mine is, but I am sure it is over 80 degrees at least. I just use a desk lamp and shine it on the hatchery. It has a 40 watt bulb I think? and that keeps it pretty warm. And the warmer the water the faster they hatch from what I understand.

As far as how many eggs to use....I am used to using teaspoons...so 1ml is 1/5 teaspoon. That is pretty close because I think mine says to use 1/4 teaspoon. But that is for a larger spawn. I was using 1/8 teaspoon for my spawn of 27.

Do you have a local LFS that may carry the HikarI First Bites? You can TRY that. I never had luck with it, but there have been people who have raised fry successfully with that stuff. You could also order it off amazon...How many days ago were the eggs laid?

 

They were only laid 24 hours ago - just ordered another air pump using prime so will be here tomorrow that will allow me to have two hatcheries working 24 hours apart. I'll just chuck 1ml in each and keep rotating them

This will have to be a trial batch as I don't even have any fungicide to dose the egg tank with. Having said that, no white eggs yet so things could be worse

 

Well, the babies won't need to be fed for about 7 more days. So you have a little time. They typically start swimming day 7, but for the first 24 hours they are still finishing their yolk sacks. So you really don't need to feed them immediately when they start swimming. They should hatch into wigglers in about 48 more hours. (3 days after being laid) Its good that you don't have any white ones yet! It might be possible without the fungicide stuff....you never know!

I will be curious to see if it really takes 72 hours for your BBS to hatch.

 

Just checked and there were actually 3 white eggs. Removed them now so hopefully they don't all turn and are infertile!

I'll probably start the brine shrimp when I see my first free swimmer and hope they don't take as long as it says to hatch.. Or maybe I'll start my first batch on day 6 just in case

 

Just checked and there were actually 3 white eggs. Removed them now so hopefully they don't all turn and are infertile!

I'll probably start the brine shrimp when I see my first free swimmer and hope they don't take as long as it says to hatch.. Or maybe I'll start my first batch on day 6 just in case

There will always be eggs that turn white. That is nothing to be concerned about. They just have to be removed so they don't "hurt" the good eggs. The parents take care of that if they have the eggs, but as you are already aware of, you have to do that job now and it appears you are on top of it!!

I wouldn't wait until they start swimming to start the BBS. I suggest you do it on day 6 just incase! Especially if the directions are implying it will take 72 hours. (which again seems odd to me)

 

There will always be eggs that turn white. That is nothing to be concerned about. They just have to be removed so they don't "hurt" the good eggs. The parents take care of that if they have the eggs, but as you are already aware of, you have to do that job now and it appears you are on top of it!!

I wouldn't wait until they start swimming to start the BBS. I suggest you do it on day 6 just incase! Especially if the directions are implying it will take 72 hours. (which again seems odd to me)

Yeh I'm absolutely fine with a few going white and removing them, my only slight concern is that none are fertilised, never got to see my last batch go past 24 hours before they got eaten haha

Having said that its been about 24 hours now and I've had to remove 6-7 eggs, but I can see quite a lot of others looking like they're changing. Fingers crossed he's done is job properly! Set a reminder for myself on day 6 to get my shrimp hatching

 

Yeh I'm absolutely fine with a few going white and removing them, my only slight concern is that none are fertilised, never got to see my last batch go past 24 hours before they got eaten haha

Having said that its been about 24 hours now and I've had to remove 6-7 eggs, but I can see quite a lot of others looking like they're changing. Fingers crossed he's done is job properly! Set a reminder for myself on day 6 to get my shrimp hatching

Here is an old batch of mine on day 1 Day 2 and day 3. You can see the progression of white eggs each day. In my experience dad doesn't really successfully get every single egg fertilized... but he gets a lot of them
Edit. .. also shortly after taking the picture on day 3 the parents moved all of the good eggs away from the Bad Eggs instead of removing the bad eggs and then by the next morning they were wiggling

 

Here is an old batch of mine on day 1 Day 2 and day 3. You can see the progression of white eggs each day. In my experience dad doesn't really successfully get every single egg fertilized... but he gets a lot of them
Edit. .. also shortly after taking the picture on day 3 the parents moved all of the good eggs away from the Bad Eggs instead of removing the bad eggs and then by the next morning they were wiggling

Great idea taking pictures.. I'll be doing the same next batch. It seems Angel fish breeding is a very quiet subject on here, can't express in words how helpful you've been!




How about adding this to the egg tank instead of MB to help with fungus? Found it in my cupboard

 

Great idea taking pictures.. I'll be doing the same next batch. It seems Angel fish breeding is a very quiet subject on here, can't express in words how helpful you've been!

I absolutely LOVE being of help! I have fallen in love with angelfish and breeding them and even though I am no expert, I enjoy helping as much as I can. It makes me feel good to know that the knowledge that I have gained can be useful to others!! And because I love angels and angel breeding so much, I really enjoy following the progress of others and their angels breeding!! I just want to be involved!!! LOL

As you have noticed, @Tolak is the true expert, I have learned a lot from Tolak and a lot through experience over the last 6 months. So I can probably help with most of your questions if Tolak isn't around to help!! But as I said before, I also do things a bit differently than Tolak because I have only had very small spawns. I am sure there are many ways of doing things though. It just a matter of what works best for you....what works for me isn't really the way things are typically done. But I found what worked for me in my situations!

How about adding this to the egg tank instead of MB to help with fungus? Found it in my cupboard

View attachment 191910
View attachment 191911

I am not familiar with that stuff....but I can't imagine that it would hurt any? maybe worth a try? If you want to experiment now, go for it. Your angel parents will most likely be laying more eggs for you in another week anyway since you removed their eggs!! Mine have always laid eggs 7-10 days after I removed their babies. So I imagine yours could be doing it again in a week since you removed their eggs a day or two ago! That is part of the reason I leave mine with the parents for a little longer. It delays their next cycle. The other reason I like to wait is because I do not WANT, nor can I handle, 100 babies (so I feel no need to go through extra hoops to ensure a large survival rate and then I am left with the strongest ones in the group too) and I enjoy watching the parents be caretakers


Speaking of...my current pair laid their eggs yesterday afternoon....which would also be approx. 24 hours ago....so we are on the same time frame with our current eggs. How fun right?!

 

I am not familiar with that stuff....but I can't imagine that it would hurt any? maybe worth a try? If you want to experiment now, go for it. Your angel parents will most likely be laying more eggs for you in another week anyway since you removed their eggs!! Mine have always laid eggs 7-10 days after I removed their babies. So I imagine yours could be doing it again in a week since you removed their eggs a day or two ago! That is part of the reason I leave mine with the parents for a little longer. It delays their next cycle. The other reason I like to wait is because I do not WANT, nor can I handle, 100 babies (so I feel no need to go through extra hoops to ensure a large survival rate and then I am left with the strongest ones in the group too) and I enjoy watching the parents be caretakers


Speaking of...my current pair laid their eggs yesterday afternoon....which would also be approx. 24 hours ago....so we are on the same time frame with our current eggs. How fun right?!

How exciting! Let's see who makes a better dad, me or your angel!

My money is on him at the moment!!

Just dosed the antI fungus for the whole tank. Surely if it says that on the box it should help!

Tolak now I have your name be prepared to be bombarded with questions the second I see a wriggle !!

 

I am not familiar with that stuff....but I can't imagine that it would hurt any? maybe worth a try? If you want to experiment now, go for it. Your angel parents will most likely be laying more eggs for you in another week anyway since you removed their eggs!! Mine have always laid eggs 7-10 days after I removed their babies. So I imagine yours could be doing it again in a week since you removed their eggs a day or two ago! That is part of the reason I leave mine with the parents for a little longer. It delays their next cycle. The other reason I like to wait is because I do not WANT, nor can I handle, 100 babies (so I feel no need to go through extra hoops to ensure a large survival rate and then I am left with the strongest ones in the group too) and I enjoy watching the parents be caretakers


Speaking of...my current pair laid their eggs yesterday afternoon....which would also be approx. 24 hours ago....so we are on the same time frame with our current eggs. How fun right?!

Woke up this morning to a lot of white eggs. More so than even in day 3 of your pic! Doing a 60% water change now and will do so again this evening (7am here atm). Thank god for Pythons!







This is how many I have left




Dropping like flies now!

 

Here is how mine changed overnight. Pic on the left is 24 hours (last night) pic on right is this morning.

Since they're on a very similar schedule I thought I would share

edit: its really hard to tell with my pics too....the glare or something. There are no white eggs on the left. And then on the right, as you can see a lot of eggs were removed/eaten. And there is a small group of white eggs at the top of the pile

Dropping like flies now!

(Mod please merge sorry)

View attachment 191985

It's dark so it's hard to tell but I see a lot of good ones on there too still...