# Brine Shrimp Hatchery



## Hammer71 (Jan 17, 2008)

As a show quality guppy breeder I thought I would share my brine shrimp hatchery method. I use a quart canning jar. You can keep the lid if you want and drill a hole in it but its not necessary. I place a heaping tablespoon of solar salt or any other non-iodized salt in the container and fill it with tap water, stop when the jar starts to taper to the lid. I place 1/4 teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs in the jar and allow them to sit for 5 minutes so they take on water (don't get cheap on the eggs go to www.brineshrimpdirect.com and get an 80% hatch or higher, the smaller percent hatch rates are not worth messing around with trust me its worth the money in the long run.) I then place the jar in a 10 or 5 gallon tank that I fill with about 3 inches of water, I usually add salt to this too just to keep algae from growing. I place a submersible heater in the tank and set it from 80 F to 85 F, depending on how fast you want the brine shrimp to hatch. I then use a perfecto air stone for an under gravel filter which I attach to a piece of rigid airline tubing that is a little longer than the quart jar, on that I attach my airline tubing. You want the bubbles to be strong enough to circulate the eggs in the jar. You may have to push some eggs of the side of the jar as the air pushes them out of the water. I also place a maxi jet power head in the tank on its side to move the water around, an air stone will also work, just so the water does not become stagnant in the tank.

Brine shrimp also benefit from having light so I place a 10 gal light fixture on top of the glass aquarium top, any light fixture will work, and leave it on all the time. In using this method especially at higher temperatures you can get a good hatch in 12 hours. Take the jar out and let sit from 5 to 10 minutes siphon the brine into brine net or old t-shirt and then rinse. Use a turkey baster to add to tanks. Add the water that was siphoned back to the jar and place back in the 10 gallon tank and place air stone back in. A full hatch will occur after 24 hours. This allows you to manage the temperature of the water the eggs are in. I also place gallon jars in this tank with angel eggs as I also breed angels, temperature is usually at 82 F. Any questions feel free to ask, am working on getting pictures up.


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## ShortFin (Jan 13, 2006)

Is the BSD brand any better? OSI claim to have 90% hatch rate and San Francisco 80%.


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## newbie314 (Mar 2, 2007)

I assume one could use an upside down soda bottle with a hole (freshwater) placed in a mason jar/bottle with top cliped off.
If one darkens the edges, the shrimp should travel from salt to fresh.
I'm basing it on the san fran. test hatchery.
I tried the experiment without shrimp and the water stayed seperated.


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## Hammer71 (Jan 17, 2008)

You could say it is a personal choice but most of us use BSD. I get the premium which has over an 85% hatch. I would say it is 90% or beter.


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