Larger, Lower Maintenance Brine Shrimp Hatchery

[sbash]

Hi Everybody!

I'm looking for some inspiration to build a new hatchery. I'm currently using two upside-down pop bottles with the double airline cap in the bottom. It works, but I want to step it up a notch. One of my big problems is the unhatched eggs make my spawning tanks messy/dirty.

If anyone feels like posting up your hatcheries, I'd love to see them!

 

[ichthyogeek]

Hmmm...I haven't dealt with eggs in a bit, but you could use the brine shrimp's biology against them. IIRC, BBS are mobile, eggs sink, and hatched cysts float. If you decyst the eggs, then you're left with just the unhatched eggs and the BBS. Add a light at the very top, and since the BBS are phototactic, you can separate them into a layer of unhatched eggs on the bottom, and a layer of hatched BBS at the top. You can decyst the eggs yourself, or

There's also PaulB's hatchery, it separates BBS from unhatched eggs and cysts. http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/brine-shrimp-hatchery-paul-b.95234/

How are the unhatched eggs making the tanks dirty? Is it a matter of lack of filtration? Or is it that there's not enough flow such that the eggs sink? What are you spawning?

 

[sbash]

Hmmm...I haven't dealt with eggs in a bit, but you could use the brine shrimp's biology against them. IIRC, BBS are mobile, eggs sink, and hatched cysts float. If you decyst the eggs, then you're left with just the unhatched eggs and the BBS. Add a light at the very top, and since the BBS are phototactic, you can separate them into a layer of unhatched eggs on the bottom, and a layer of hatched BBS at the top. You can decyst the eggs yourself, or

There's also PaulB's hatchery, it separates BBS from unhatched eggs and cysts. http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/index.php?threads/brine-shrimp-hatchery-paul-b.95234/

How are the unhatched eggs making the tanks dirty? Is it a matter of lack of filtration? Or is it that there's not enough flow such that the eggs sink? What are you spawning?

I'm breeding pseudomugil cyanodorsalis in salt water. Amazing little guys... And I mean little; every time I siphon the tanks I suck a few up (even with airline tubing).

Anyway, PaulB's design is good for a general feeder, good idea. I think I'll try to build it in a reactor; I can set up a few different set ups with the spare reactors I have kicking around. I'll post up what I come up with!

 

[Isaac Alves]

This ZISS bring shrimp Hatchery system being distributed by aquarium co-op seems interesting to me.

Ziss Brine Shrimp Hatchery | Live Brine Shrimp for Feeding Baby Fish

Ziss makes the best brine shrimp hatchery on the market because of its strong, impact-resistant plastic and ability to run a heater and thermometer inside.

www.aquariumcoop.com

And it's relatively inexpensive that it might be cheaper than a DIY.

 

[sbash]

This ZISS bring shrimp Hatchery system being distributed by aquarium co-op seems interesting to me.

Ziss Brine Shrimp Hatchery | Live Brine Shrimp for Feeding Baby Fish

Ziss makes the best brine shrimp hatchery on the market because of its strong, impact-resistant plastic and ability to run a heater and thermometer inside.

www.aquariumcoop.com

And it's relatively inexpensive that it might be cheaper than a DIY.

Looks just like the 'standard' pop bottle setup to me. Unless I'm missing something?

 

[boacvh]

This is the one I am using. Very happy with it. Ultra low maintenance. 2 mins every four or five days. Pretty simple design and all eggs stay on one side, never with the shrimp

Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish

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www.bulkreefsupply.com

.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I'm breeding pseudomugil cyanodorsalis in salt water. Amazing little guys... And I mean little; every time I siphon the tanks I suck a few up (even with airline tubing).

Anyway, PaulB's design is good for a general feeder, good idea. I think I'll try to build it in a reactor; I can set up a few different set ups with the spare reactors I have kicking around. I'll post up what I come up with!

Amazing! Did you get the idea from Inappropriate Reefer or stumble upon them? I’d love to try my hands on breeding them at some point!

 

[sbash]

This is the one I am using. Very happy with it. Ultra low maintenance. 2 mins every four or five days. Pretty simple design and all eggs stay on one side, never with the shrimp

This is a good design, but it's too small. I want a large scale hatchery I can draw from and feed bbs to multiple tanks/systems.

Amazing! Did you get the idea from Inappropriate Reefer or stumble upon them? I’d love to try my hands on breeding them at some point!

I just stumbled upon them. I traded a trumpet/candycane coral for a half dozen from a breeder who specialized in fresh water rainbow fish. A while later, I moved away from that area so I bought 20, and started breeding them.

It's very easy, but I discovered last year I really need to keep the rotation going with the breeding mops. My stock was down to 10 as of February. With a proper 2 week rotation of the mops (one tank for laying, one tank for hatching) I'm up to around 40-50 now. Another few months and that should double again, but I suspect a steady supply of BBS and better water quality would improve egg laying.

 

[boacvh]

This is a good design, but it's too small. I want a large scale hatchery I can draw from and feed bbs to multiple tanks/systems.

gotcha. Perhaps you can borrow elements of the design for something similar but larger? definitely following!

 

[Isaac Alves]

Looks just like the 'standard' pop bottle setup to me. Unless I'm missing something?

I'm assuming its similar to the Brine Shrimp Hatchery prosumer table system:

Large Hatchery Cone with Stand plus 1.75 oz. Brine Shrimp Egg

Large Brine Shrimp Hatchery Cone with Stand, 2-Liter capacity. Equipped with stopcock (valve) for draining and harvesting. Also includes air hose and rigid tubing!

www.brineshrimpdirect.com

...but the Aquarium Co-op one appears easier to maintenance and quickly pull stock from. And it's acrylic. I was just looking at the reviews.

 

[sbash]

I'm assuming its similar to the Brine Shrimp Hatchery prosumer table system:

Large Hatchery Cone with Stand plus 1.75 oz. Brine Shrimp Egg

Large Brine Shrimp Hatchery Cone with Stand, 2-Liter capacity. Equipped with stopcock (valve) for draining and harvesting. Also includes air hose and rigid tubing!

www.brineshrimpdirect.com

...but the Aquarium Co-op one appears easier to maintenance and quickly pull stock from. And it's acrylic. I was just looking at the reviews.

Yeah, pretty much the same concept as my pop bottles:

 

[The0wn4g3]

This is the one I am using. Very happy with it. Ultra low maintenance. 2 mins every four or five days. Pretty simple design and all eggs stay on one side, never with the shrimp

Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish

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www.bulkreefsupply.com

.

Going to give a +1 for this.
I can draw live brine out of one of these for 1-2 weeks after the initial hatch, and I get probably 10's of thousands of them total.
Buy 2 or 3 of them and you'll continuously have more brine shrimp than you know what to do with.

 

[sbash]

gotcha. Perhaps you can borrow elements of the design for something similar but larger? definitely following!

Going to give a +1 for this.
I can draw live brine out of one of these for 1-2 weeks after the initial hatch, and I get probably 10's of thousands of them total.
Buy 2 or 3 of them and you'll continuously have more brine shrimp than you know what to do with.

After watching a few videos, this is an excellent design. Conceptually, it's pretty much what I'm looking for. I have a couple unused reactors, I'll have to give these concepts some thought and see what I can come up with. Thanks all!

 

[The0wn4g3]

After watching a few videos, this is an excellent design. Conceptually, it's pretty much what I'm looking for. I have a couple unused reactors, I'll have to give these concepts some thought and see what I can come up with. Thanks all!

Was thinking about it, and I bet it wouldn't be hard to make a DIY version of the same baffle concept but instead of a circle make it a long rectangle. You could have different "lanes" of brine shrimp eggs for continuous hatching. Then maybe you'd just have to drain and refill the "lanes" that need water changes but whole system could continue to run? I bet anything with a baffle system and a light source would work. Just an idea!

 

[sbash]

Was thinking about it, and I bet it wouldn't be hard to make a DIY version of the same baffle concept but instead of a circle make it a long rectangle. You could have different "lanes" of brine shrimp eggs for continuous hatching. Then maybe you'd just have to drain and refill the "lanes" that need water changes but whole system could continue to run? I bet anything with a baffle system and a light source would work. Just an idea!

Agreed. I actually didn't realize that product was so large. BRS claims it's 8" diameter (although, that could be the box).

Either way, the design and concept is simple. I'm going to print one, so I can get a feel for it.

 

[sbash]

Quick Update:
Blacking out half a reactor didn't work, looks like it crashed after 24 hours. About 50 hatched by the 24 hour mark, but it's just gross in there. I'm going to repeat the experiment with fewer eggs and a fresh can of eggs. (My old can was 2.5 years old and probably contributed to the bottles crashing).

The 3d printed copy of the "Brine Shrimp Hatchery Dish" worked pretty much as well as described above. I made it to about 1/3 scale:



I made a bit of a mess with the eggs, but this is just an experiment:

Hard to see, but there are 50-100 BBS in there:

What I would like to do is to make a longer, rectangular version of this design's premise. Have the BBS run the same gauntlet of: over, under, over, under to an opening at one end.

Neat stuff, thanks all!

 

[The0wn4g3]

Nice! I hope the baffle idea works for you. As long as they can see a bit of light they'll find it eventually.

 

[hart24601]

Neat to watch printing of these hatchers. They really do work great, got one years ago before brs started carrying them and they like life so much easier.

 

[mrpizzaface]

I'm assuming its similar to the Brine Shrimp Hatchery prosumer table system:

Large Hatchery Cone with Stand plus 1.75 oz. Brine Shrimp Egg

Large Brine Shrimp Hatchery Cone with Stand, 2-Liter capacity. Equipped with stopcock (valve) for draining and harvesting. Also includes air hose and rigid tubing!

www.brineshrimpdirect.com

...but the Aquarium Co-op one appears easier to maintenance and quickly pull stock from. And it's acrylic. I was just looking at the reviews.

the plastic cone for the brine shrimp direct hatchery does not last long. I have made the same version as the one Dean is using in this video (materials list is in the description) . Total cost per hatchery is about $20 plus your time. I am going to try the Ziss Artemia blender as it seems more durable, but I doubt it will be more functional. I have been using the water bottle versions for over a year, with daily BBS hatching.

 

[sbash]

the plastic cone for the brine shrimp direct hatchery does not last long. I have made the same version as the one Dean is using in this video (materials list is in the description) . Total cost per hatchery is about $20 plus your time. I am going to try the Ziss Artemia blender as it seems more durable, but I doubt it will be more functional. I have been using the water bottle versions for over a year, with daily BBS hatching.

This is pretty much what I was doing, well, not pretty much, exactly. Except I wasn't hanging, as you can see from my stand posted above.

He slowly walks through the whole process in about 20 minutes as part of his daily routine. He's also still going to have the same problem with unhatched eggs getting into the tanks.

The disc hatchery, so far, is the lowest maintenance, but the daily yield is dramatically less. It is still producing BBS daily (from the initial batch of eggs), but only about 100 or so. I'm going to try it in a bucket and see what happens...