Brine Shrimp Hatchery!

[f1oored]

Alright so you have baby fish and you want to hatch brine shrimp to feed them. You can use your wifes liter measuring cup (as I did) or you can build a small hatching tank as I will show you.

Brine shrimp take 24 hours to hatch so it is good to have two batches going at a time, this way your fry don't have to wait 24 hours for their next meal.

The materials you will need for this project are...
5"x12" piece of plywood
2- 5" 2x4s
6 nails or screws
2- 2 liter bottles
Air pump w/ tubing
2 standard air stones

Step 1
First nail the 2x4s to the bottom of the plywood (one at each end) making a table like structure. Then cut two 3" circular holes in the plywood.

Step 2
Cut the bottoms off of the 2 liter bottles and remove the caps. Make a small hole in the center of each cap big enough for the air stone plug to fit through. Use hot glue to seal the air stone in place and make the hole water tight.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c45/f1oored/shrimphatch009.jpg
When it's done it should look like this.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c45/f1oored/shrimphatch010.jpg

Step 3
Once it is dry, screw the caps back on the bottle and plug them into the air pump. Everything should fit together like below. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c45/f1oored/shrimphatch011.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c45/f1oored/shrimphatch012.jpg
You can start a new batch of brine shrimp every 24 hours and your fry will always have a fresh meal ready.

[Drumachine09]

Thats a really great idea. Ill have to remeber that for when i get my mbunas, and they do happen to breed.

[jeffs99dime]

floored, you should pm william and request this to be submitted in the article section of the site. this is an awesome how to! good job:thumb:

[cartmanis]

Nice, I like that, simple and useful...

One though, if you get a power outage or something, won't the water in the bottles drain into the pump/be bad for it? Just thinking it might make sense to mount the pump above the level of the water in the bottles. (Unless I'm missing something to prevent that already - maybe the pumps already don't allow air to flow backwards...)

[Sasquatch]

Here's an "upgrade" that could make life a little easier.

Don't put the airstone, just leave the airline open at the end. Attach add a shutoff valve to the airline, the kind that squeezes it.

Once the brine shrimp have hatched, shut off the airflow. Put a little light under the bottles. The unhatched brine shrimp and husks will float to the top, the live shrimp will swim to the bottom. Disconnect the airline from the pump. Open the valve and let the water drain out of the bottle into another 2L bottle and use a funnel with a coffee filter in it to gather the brine shrimp. Once all the shrimp are in the filter, shut off the valve.

You now have all the baby brine shrimp on a coffee filter. Add a little water in a small container (margarine containers work well) and rinse the filter to put the shrimp into the water. Then use one of the pipettes that comes with the water test kits to distribute the brine shrimp.

I used this when I was raising larval minnows and it worked like a charm, hope it helps.

[Nautilus291]

Nice, I like that, simple and useful...

One though, if you get a power outage or something, won't the water in the bottles drain into the pump/be bad for it? Just thinking it might make sense to mount the pump above the level of the water in the bottles. (Unless I'm missing something to prevent that already - maybe the pumps already don't allow air to flow backwards...)

You could put the airpump above the bottles.

[f1oored]

I'm not overly concerned for the pump. If my power goes out, I'm in a world of trouble anyhow, what's one little air pump going to matter? But you are right, this problem could be easily fixed by moving the pump higher or just keeping a portion of the tube above the water level.

Sasquatch,
I tried removing the airstone and the bigger bubbles were much louder and shook the stand so much the bottles were moving. I will have to change a lot to make it work that way. For now it is going to have to stay as is. I might make a version 2.0 in a while and I will use your ideas then. Thanks.

[Sasquatch]

Yeah, when I did it for the fatheads I had a glass pipette on the end so the bubbles came out smaller.

You could rig it like above, but have the airflow come in seperatly from the open end of the bottles. Just have the tubing on the bottom to drain it. That way, you could drop the airstone in, remove it when the 24h is up and drain out the baby brine shrimp.

[f1oored]

I will probably either find a way to reduce the amount of air going through the tube or find a way to secure the bottles. Version 2.0 will be up and running soon.

[kimmers318]

Great idea f1oored! I have to admit though....I am lazy, not a DIY person at all, but the way you described it and the pics made it real easy to figure out. I went and bought the brine shrimp hatchery kit.....I used the excuse that my daughter needed a science project so she compared the growth and ease of hatching to regular brine shrimp and sea monkeys along with the research about the 2!

[cichlid22c]

i made one and i used a broken air stone and a square storage bowl for the base cut hole for bottle top to fit in and drill some holes forin top tthe bowl to so when i put it in the tank it didnt hold air then put cap on from inside bowl.then i put it in a full 10 gal tank to get the 80-82 degrees

[country_boy454]

Wow nice and easy to follow DIY hatchery. I'll keep this in mind for when my convict cichlids actually get a batch of eggs to hatch! On the third try now!