Separating BBS Unhatched / Hatch / Shells

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi guys, coming up on the 24 mark on my first and experimental hatch of BBS. Definitely have a nice pulsing cloud of BBS in the hatching cone. Soliciting ideas for separating the unhatched, hatched and empty shells. I understand that the shells collect on the water surface. The unhatched are at the bottom of the cone everything between is live.

[Discoholic]

Pat,
Put a light at the bottom to concentrate the live BS at the bottom. If the cone has a valve at the bottom you can then drain the BS into a small mesh net to rinse and then feed to your fry. I would recommend decapsulating your BS before you hatch it. It is simple to decapsulate and that way it doesn't really matter if all the BS hatches because it's all edible.

[nc0gnet0]

Run to the store and get a coffee basket, this works great for a BBS screen. Turn off the air and as mention the egg shells will float to the top. Then use an air hose and siphon the mix through the coffee basket leaving the sludge in the bottom and the shells at the top. Grap a cup or so of tank water and dump it through the basket and then dump the basket into the tank.

And then there are those that don't bother with any of this and just dump the whole mix in the tank and have good success.

Rick

[JamesHe]

My method,

1, turn off the air for 10 minutes
2, use air tube to siphon out the BBS, keep about 1 inch from bottom.
3, use coffee filter seperate the BBS, put the coffee filter at sink.
4, leave about 1 inch water above the air tube then stop.
5, rinse BBS in the coffee filter with RO water/ or tank water.
6, feed the fry

if BBS is too much for fry to finish in one feed, I will save the BBS in fresh salt water and keep it in refrigerator, it will survive for few days up to one week.

[Larry Bugg]

I turn off the air and shine a flashlight at the bottom of the bottle. After about 5 minutes the live will all concentrate there. I then use a turkey baster to suck them out. You can them run them through a BBS net if you want to wash them or squirt them directly in the tank.

[Discus Origins]

Same thing as Larry suggested with flashlight to concentrate the live BBS. I use a short length of airline tubing (straightened) attached to a plastic syringe to suck out the BBS. Coffee filter or fine screen is good for rinsing them and then I suck back up with the syringe and shoot them to the fry.

[mmorris]

I take the airline out, and after a few minutes the bbs settle at or near the bottom. I use a turkey baster (thanks Keith ;)) to siphon out from the bottom of the bottle. I cover a cup with ladies' nylon stocking and pour the contents of the turkey baster over the stocking. The salt water strains through the stocking into the cup and I just shake out the bbs from the stocking into the tank. I rinse the stocking with every use. I wouldn't worry about any unhatched bbs at the bottom of the bottle.

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks guys, appreciate the input. Here's what I did..

So I emptied the hatchery from the bottom into a one liter water bottle and using Martha's idea of lady's hose as a filter. Placed the hose over the bottle opening and poured out the salt water. I added some RO water to the bottle to wash the BBS back into some water and poured that into a small container.

It seems to work, there was a nice little cloud for BBS but seems like there should be more. I took a syringe, attached some air tubing to it and the other end to a piece of small rigid tubing. I used the syringe to suck some of the BBS through the rigid tubing and filled the body of the syringe. I then used the rigid tubing to place the BBS where I wanted it in the tank above the parent with the fry. The parent decided to move fry away from my squint area.

So this will take a little practice from me and some conditioning of the parents but believe there is enough to get the job done and the fry fat little bellies.

I saved a small portion in the fridge for a small sample in the morning.

[Second Hand Pat]

OK, reading back through I need to throw away the first little bit of unhatched eggs.

[Discus-n00b]

Any leftovers from a batch that you are going to throw out can be frozen, just FYI! I use an old tray from other frozen foods I used in the past and just filled up all of the cubes with left over brine shrimp. Good for cases where I don't get a good hatch out or If I run short...or once the fry don't care about it being live.

[Second Hand Pat]

Thanks Matt, seems like an old ice cube tray should work nicely for that.