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Lewy 
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 Topic: Brine shrimp tank?
Posted: May 02 2013 at 11:24am |
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Has anyone set up a tank for brine shrimp? My daughter saw the one at the Living Planet Aquarium and she has been obsessed ever since. She doesn't want it so she can feed the fish but as her tank. So what I wanted to know is can I set up a "normal" tank for the shrimp? What kind of filtration is okay to use, what can I feed them, can I have macroalgae in there, LR, LS, etc? I've read up on the subject but everything seems to point to 2L soda pop bottles to garbage cans.
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40 gal w/ 20 sump
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Krazie4Acans
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Posted: May 02 2013 at 11:37am |
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They don't make good pets as they hatch into flies after they mature. Their life cycle is eggs to shrimp, shrimp to flies, flies to eggs. Not something I want to try and contain in my house. They are better left as food for other fish.
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My ocean. 90g (yup, won it!), 40g, 28g, & 10g Systems PADI Advanced Open Water Tank Thread:
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reefnfeef
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Posted: May 02 2013 at 11:41am |
check out ecosphere's they're self-sustaining and only need indirect light.
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaannd.... I'm broke
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rize2
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Posted: May 02 2013 at 11:56am |
 reefnfeef wrote:
check out ecosphere's they're self-sustaining and only need indirect light.
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Thats pretty awesome
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Lewy
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Posted: May 02 2013 at 12:41pm |
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That's pretty cool. Thanks.
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40 gal w/ 20 sump
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sabeypets
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Posted: May 02 2013 at 11:10pm |
All you need to raise a few brine shrimp is a quart mason jar and a small air pump. The best thing to feed them is phytoplankton. If you put them in a sunny window and get the phyto (green water) going they will be self sustaining as long as the water stays tinted lightly green. You only need bubbles, no filtration is needed. When the water starts turning yellow or bubbles start to make foam on top its time to do a water change (2 to 4 weeks). They will also live on crushed flake food but its harder to maintain water quality. They will grow into adults and have a few live babies. When I was a kid you could buy a kit called "Sea Monkeys". Hatch and grow your own live "sea monkeys", yep they were just brine shrimp.
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Shaun American Fork  "Would you leave a dead cat in your kitchen till tommorow?" Builderofdreams
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sabeypets
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Posted: May 02 2013 at 11:21pm |
Krazie4Acans wrote:
They don't make good pets as they hatch into flies after they mature. Their life cycle is eggs to shrimp, shrimp to flies, flies to eggs. Not something I want to try and contain in my house. They are better left as food for other fish. |
UM.... NO flies.
Life cycle is..... egg to shrimp, mature shrimp lays eggs or has live babies (depending on the time of year), shrimp dies.
Shrimp never leaves the water and NO flies.
They make great pets.
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Shaun American Fork "Would you leave a dead cat in your kitchen till tommorow?" Builderofdreams
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 7:43am |
Brine Shrimp -> Brine Flies That's a new one.  I can see how it could seem to be. Jeff, With your daughters fascination of Brine Shrimp, I'd
consider an outing to the Great Salt Lake Marina in the next few weeks. The State Marina is the easiest place to view them. GSL BS are red, green, blue and pink. They also get larger than you have
ever seen. The hatches come periodically during Spring, Summer and Fall so don't be discouraged if you see none or just a few. Return a few weeks later and you will probably see tons. Here is a pic.  For over 40 years, hobbyists like myself have used large fish nets to collect, then wash and freeze a years worth of extremely nutritious BS for their fw and sw aquariums. I love to leave some of my collection alive in a bucket and for weeks feed live BS to my tanks. After the intial shock of seeing live BS in their space, the fish go crazy for them and can gorge themselves almost to the point of looking like they will pop.  The BS breed in the bucket/tank and if fed Phyto (phyto paste from Brine Shrimp Direct in Ogden) they will produce live nauplii(young) which can be siphoned and strained to feed to baby Bangaii and Nemos as seen below. Hope you and your daughter enjoy this information and pics.   Aloha, Mark 
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Lewy
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 10:00am |
Mark, I like the trip idea. I may have to do that one of these weekends. She loved the pics and now she says she has to have the colorful brine shrimp. I agreed with her. I have a 1g hex tank that I'm going to help her set up so she can have her sea monkey tank. Perhapps when she isn't looking I'll siphone a few out to "live" in the big tank.  shrimp to flies...if sea monkeys are brine shrimp...is that where flying monkeys came from? 
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40 gal w/ 20 sump
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improdigal
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 10:08am |
Now my curiosity is peaked as well... I'm taking a shot at serious Sea Horse care and was considering setting up my own system for phyto-plankton production to breed multiple micro organisms for feeding live bait to difficult sea horses.
First question is, can these be bread in normal seawater salinity? I was under the impression they had to be bred in extremely high salinity (such as the great salt lake).
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Patrick
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tfmreefs
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 2:11pm |
I have to hatch brine shrimp out 24/7 for my baby axolotls. All I do is put 2 table spoons of iodized salt and a good pinch of baking soda in (optional) for ph and bubble it and I have a bunch the next day. I do this all in a 2 liter bottle. A little tip is that is you have them in warmer conditions, they will hatch a lot quicker, so I have them over a small electric heat pad.
- I dont think they need extremely high levels of salt because the first time I hatched them I only put a teaspoon of salt in and a bunch still hatched, but didnt make it past day 3, but They dont need a while bunch. Of the ones I am raising, I will take a salinity check of the water they are in Improdigal.
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"The early bird might get the worm, but only the second mouse gets the cheese."
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improdigal
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 3:03pm |
tfmreefs wrote:
I have to hatch brine shrimp out 24/7 for my baby axolotls. All I do is put 2 table spoons of iodized salt and a good pinch of baking soda in (optional) for ph and bubble it and I have a bunch the next day. I do this all in a 2 liter bottle. A little tip is that is you have them in warmer conditions, they will hatch a lot quicker, so I have them over a small electric heat pad.
- I dont think they need extremely high levels of salt because the first time I hatched them I only put a teaspoon of salt in and a bunch still hatched, but didnt make it past day 3, but They dont need a while bunch. Of the ones I am raising, I will take a salinity check of the water they are in Improdigal. |
Thanks TFM, The idea I had in mind was developing a multi chamber tank that sits in my window that will automatically dose the tank with xx amount of live food daily or weekly, while allowing some to remain to seed the next batch... but for that to work, I'd have to refill it with normal tank water after it feeds each day. Can these grow at any reasonable rate in normal tank water?
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Patrick
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tfmreefs
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 3:23pm |
When you say normal tank water are you saying, just like the regualar salt water you have in your tank?... I will have to find that out!
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"The early bird might get the worm, but only the second mouse gets the cheese."
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Jacknugget
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 4:21pm |
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Anybody have any good ideas for making a DIY brine shrimp net? I'm looking for something I can use to collect shrimp out of the GSL.
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125 Mixed Reef
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 4:54pm |
Fish nets are made of material similar to Tulle/Bridal Veil material that you can buy for pennies at fabric stores. If you get the mesh size a little smaller than typical fish nets, smaller/younger BS can also be collected. Some people have made a rim out of a coat hanger and with just a few stitches you have a DIY net. Duct taping it to a long stick makes it easier to swish back and forth, in the water. A large 6-8" fish net works pretty good if the BS are thick/dense. The trick is to go there when they are. I rinse them 3 times in fresh water before freezing in ziplock bags. Have fun. Aloha, Mark
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Jacknugget
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Posted: May 03 2013 at 6:10pm |
improdigal wrote:
tfmreefs wrote:
I have to hatch brine shrimp out 24/7 for my baby axolotls. All I do is put 2 table spoons of iodized salt and a good pinch of baking soda in (optional) for ph and bubble it and I have a bunch the next day. I do this all in a 2 liter bottle. A little tip is that is you have them in warmer conditions, they will hatch a lot quicker, so I have them over a small electric heat pad.
- I dont think they need extremely high levels of salt because the first time I hatched them I only put a teaspoon of salt in and a bunch still hatched, but didnt make it past day 3, but They dont need a while bunch. Of the ones I am raising, I will take a salinity check of the water they are in Improdigal. |
Thanks TFM, The idea I had in mind was developing a multi chamber tank that sits in my window that will automatically dose the tank with xx amount of live food daily or weekly, while allowing some to remain to seed the next batch... but for that to work, I'd have to refill it with normal tank water after it feeds each day. Can these grow at any reasonable rate in normal tank water? |
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125 Mixed Reef
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improdigal
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Posted: May 04 2013 at 12:28pm |
Jacknugget wrote:
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That's what I'm talking about! I'm all over that
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Patrick
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Lewy
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Posted: May 05 2013 at 11:31am |
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I can't believe what came from one question. I love all the info.
I saw nets for sell at my local grocery store for butterflies and moths made very much the same way Mark described making nets for brine shrimp. they were 3 for 5$ and about 8 inches accross. I think I'm going to get some before we head out to gather some.
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40 gal w/ 20 sump
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