DIY Brine Shrimp Hatchery

[falcon555]

I am experimenting with brine shrimp and a DIY hatchery and thought I'd post some pictures and what has worked for me if anyone else has considered using live brine in their tanks. My set up is a smaller version of what Joey from King of DIY on youtube does to fit my systems needs (30G display, 20G long sump with refugium) and it is producing more then I probably should be feeding a day.

This build came out to around $20 or less depending what you have in your miscelaneous reefing parts collections and it was fun and easy to do.

Air pump
Airstones
Airine tubing
Airline tubing control valve
Airline check valves
Aquarium silicone
Brine Shrimp Eggs
Water bottle
Scrap Wood
Strainer Net


First I cut out two holes into a scrap of 1/4" ply, and used two 3/8" scraps for the sides, since my bottles are small this is plenty of stability.
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Next I drilled a hole in the center of the water bottle cap, and test fit the air stone in it. At this time I also cut off the top 1/4" of the water bottles I will be using, saving the cut out piece to use as a lid for the bottles later.
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Next I siliconed the airstone in place, and let it dry for 48 hours. Careful here because I somehow managed to seal the inlet of one airstone using too much silicone on the inside of the cap...
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Use the airline tee and control valves for however many chambers you plan on running. I am running only two chambers, so one T, and a control valve for each for me.
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When the silicone is dry, screw on the bottle cap.

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Insert the bottles into the holder

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Now we are ready to attach our air pump, airlines, and check valves and start the cultures.

Part 2 coming soon.

 

[kchristensen8064]

I made one very similar to this that had 5 bottles. I had dwarf seahorses. It was so much work trying to keep up with it. I would still do an occasional hatch for my other fish but aside from that, I didn't have the time to keep up with it. On a side note I still have a ton of brine shrimp eggs if you are interested...

 

[halmus]

Awesome project. What’s the process once they hatch to separate out the brine? Do you have to feed the brine anything to enrich them or are ready to become fish food right away?

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

I did this back in the day when I worked at a fish store. I don’t remember much about what we did but I do remember it was pretty easy. The fish loved it. We used it to sell and to feed new arrivals that were picky eaters.

 

[falcon555]

Awesome project. What’s the process once they hatch to separate out the brine? Do you have to feed the brine anything to enrich them or are ready to become fish food right away?

Its my understanding that the freshly hatched brine have a good protein profile but as they mature are low in certain essential fatty acids so some people enrich them with selcon, phyto or spirulina. So far I have only fed the baby brine freshly hatched and I have been adding a tiny dash of reef roids and phytoplankton after 48 hours (I believe this is when they have begun to develop a mouth and anus). Again just doing this for fun, the fish and coral love eating the and its cool to see all the tiny shrimp in the water column. I have had issues with high nutrients in the water using frozen so thought I'd experiment with this for a while to see if the live food presents less nutrient build up over time allowing me to feed heavy and maintain my water. I will be transferring some of the hatch into a 5 gallon tank and will try growing some a little bigger and gut loading them. Not worth the time and effort to a lot of folks but I am a farmer by trade so I enjoy watching things grow and get a real kick out of 'growing' food for my couple of fishes and corals.

 

[halmus]

Now you’ve got me thinking....

What if you gut-load your brine on “muscle milk” or some other protein powder. You could start growing brine that look like this guy:

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Keep up the good work on your farm!

 

[falcon555]

Now you’ve got me thinking....

What if you gut-load your brine on “muscle milk” or some other protein powder. You could start growing brine that look like this guy:

View attachment 12727

Keep up the good work on your farm!

Love it, and well they are on a baby formula of reef 'roids'! :blush:

Part 2:

I fill the bottles halfway with my tank water, and the other half with fresh mixed salt and RODI until the salinity is at 1.026. I add about a half tsp. of brine shrimp eggs and pour it into the containers and turn the air stones on as low as they can go. Even on my lowest setting its still pretty turbulent but they dont seem to mind. They will start hatching in 24 hours at the ambient temperature of my house, and at 48 hours they are ready to be siphoned out with a baster, strained and fed into the tank. After 48 hours, I will add a tiny pinch of reef roids and a capful of phyto to the water for the remaining culture and keep it going for around 3 days or until is depleted. Then, rinse and repeat!

Ideally I will alternate timing on cultures but I wanted to start two back up simultaneously so one can serve as the culture for what will end up in the 5 gallon tank to see if they will grow out bigger for gut loading.

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