what does everyone use...

[daninthesand]

arpanlib

Thanks for the informaton. If people go to the trouble to raise BBS I don't see that it is a leap of effort to raise them to adulthood if its as easy as it seems. Why risk live foods from questionable sources when you can raise your own?

Daniel

[citizenal]

Raising birne shrimp to fullsize takes more effort than hatching brine shrimp. A few days after they hatch their yolk sacs are used up and you have to feed then with phytoplankton, live algae cultures or spirulina powder. Feeding them clouds up the water real fast and if you dont do 2 water changes a day you will get a steady death rate (a little clump of dead shrimp on the bottom). If you can find a good way to filter the saltwater and replace it then it will be no problem to raise brine shrimp to full size. What I have found that works is to use a strainer of some sort (for noodles or such) and place a shop towel for filtering. In shop towel I mean the disposable ones that are blue and are for car use. This method is great for freezing freshly hatched brine shrimp for your discus. You get the full nutritional value of the yolks and you dont have to constantly hatch brine shrimp. I use a 5 gallon bottle and 7 spoons of brine shrimp. I'll tell, thats alot of filtering!!!

[Discusgeo]

Here is how mine is put togethere. I have a acrylic holder inside the 10 gallon tank that keeps the pop bottles upright. The heater is set to 85 to keep the water water so the eggs hatch out quickly. I normally have all 3 bottles running with the eggs added 24 hours apart.
George

george: your 3-bottle system is almost identical to dave_c's...only he managed to squeeze it into a five gallon tank....i picked up a used ten gallon tank last night and a couple sheets of that white plastic egg-crate...rather than using plexi-glass on the bottom, i'm just using a few courses of eggcrate with holes cut out for the pop bottles to notch into...

[Willie]

Dan;

The ecology and biology of the brine shrimp in the Great Salt Lakes has still not been elucidated, so raising them is not just a matter of food and biological filtration. I remember a conversation with Mary Ellen Sweeney, who edited Aquarium Fish for a while. She was able to maintain a salt water aquarium with a very slow sponge filter in the sunlight with brine shrimp. However, the yield was extremely low.

Willie

[arpanlib]

hi,
in my opinion, the brine shrimps grow in puddles, left by the waves, and i have tried to create the same situation. i donot do any filteration, nor do i change the water, instead i remain steady on the water parameters.

the brine shrimp grow well and i can see none of them dead on the bottom of the container. and for all, if i maintain the same SG 1.022 throughout their growth and breeding, i am rewarded with BBS from the parents!!! this ways, i am never out of BBS and adults. the moment i get BBS, i filter out the adults to feed them to the fish and also some of the BBS for the anemone.

hope this info helps you all.

arpanlib

arpanlib: you must be doing something right if you're getting your brine shrimp to breed...

[Discusgeo]

David here is a picture of the holder that keeps my 3 bottles upright. I purchased it off Aquabid from USMC1. For your information there is no glass on the front or back of this item

[peety]

The drink bottle one does it for me
This link is the method I use,
http://aquarium.virtualave.net/brine.html
I tried it other ways (harder) then was staggered when an old coke bottle with some holes drilled in it did the trick.

I tried to grow them on as well but they died fairly quickly after a few days, some got big but... :-\

Thats my next project, a constant supply of adults....