What are brine shrimp? Most people know them as Sea Monkeys. There are a small crustaceans native to Salt Lake in Utah. Every year the eggs or cysts are collected and stored for sale. You can buy any quanity the most common is a one pound can. Brine shrimp are mostly used to live fish food for very small fry. The newly hatched shrimp live off a egg sac with which they grow rapidly. When the baby fish eat them, they too can grow rapidly. Fish love live food. It is natural reaction for them to eat small moving creatures. They really have to learn to eat flake food.

It is very simple to hatch in your home. I use an empty 2 liter plastic pop bottle. I cut off the top. I fill with aquarium water or dechlorinated water. You do not want the chlorine killing the shrimp or eggs. Fill 3/4 full or about a quart of water. Add a teaspoon of salt. You can use aquarium salt or table salt. The salt is needed for the shrimp since they need a saline environment to survive. You will need a small air pump to bubble the air. The water need to be moving to keep the oxygen levels high. It is very important since the salt lowers the amount of oxygen that the water can hold. You can use a air stone or just a airline. I use a rubber band to attached a weight to hold the airline in the water. I suggest the you have place that it does matter than salt water is splashing around. The bubbles action will knock tiny droplets of salt water in the surrounding area. This will make a mess over time. Also salt water will accelerates the rusting of metal.

It takes 24 to 48 hours for the shrimp to hatch. This is dependent on the temperature. If the room temperature is 72 it will take the full time. If the room temperature is 80. The hatching time will be at the lower end. You can see what the shrimp have hatched the eggs are brown color. The newly hatched shrimp are a salmon orange color. Now comes the tricky part. You need to remove the shrimp without getting the eggs shells. The egg shell tend to float at the top of the salt water when the air stone is removed.You need to wait a few minutes for the empty shell to float to the surface. I use a short  piece of airline tubing to siphon the shrimp. I place one end a couple inches into the water and gently suck the other end to start the flow of water. You want to do this carefully or you will have a mouthful of brine shrimp. I strain the water going out of the airline tubing with the brine strain net. I careful collect the water in another contain. It will take several collection to get most of the shrimp out of the container. I pour the strained water back into the container again. Sometimes a few shrimp will go through the net. Also you want to only collect enough for one feeding. The reason that you are doing this is that the empty shells have no food value so fill up the stomach of the baby fish. This is very important with the youngest of fish. Sometimes it can block the intestines of the fish. They will then slowly waste away. It is something to avoid. If the water looks fairly clear it can used at least the second time. You use the brine shrimp net to remove the shells.

How many eggs do you put in a batch? It depends on the number of fish you are feeding. I usually use 1/4 to 1/2 a teaspoon to batch.

How much to you feed the baby fish? Good question I can't tell the answer. It really depends on how many fry you have, the size of the fry, and how much they should be allow to feed. You will have to experiment and find out what works for you. Also some fish will eat themselves to death. Baby bettas will sometimes eat so much that they explode their stomachs. The brine shrimp will live for two or three days at most before they foul their water or need to be fed. Brine shrimp only live in freshwater a short few hours. You start new batches at you need them. With practice you will get the hang of it.

What happens if a couple brine shrimp survive in my hatching container? I did clean out my container after I was done giving the brine shrimp to my baby shrimp. The container was sitting the window for a couple of weeks. I noticed something moving in the water. They were two adult brine shrimp. They pale white almost transparent. They looked like rippling feather swimming through the water. They sometimes sell adult brine shrimp in the pet stores.

What are the reasons for feeding with brine shrimp?
1. The first reason is for baby fish. Nothing seems to get fry to eat and grow rapidly than live foods. Brine shrimp are a live food that you can start on demand.
2. Brine shrimp are use to condition adult fish for breeding. If you have a guppies or bettas and you want to give them food that encourages them to breed. Brine shrimp is one of the best food that you can use. Some of the african cichlids like it too.
3. If you have a wild-caught fish, live foods will keep it alive while it adjusts to eating flake food.
4. Brine shrimp does not foul the water as fast as flake food. With flake food it start to decay the second it hits the water. Bacteria start to feed on it producing ammonia. If you feed too many it can kill the baby fish.  Live food does not start to decay until it dies. It is usually all gone before it dies.

What are decapsulated brine shrimp? These are brine shrimp eggs that have been soaked in a bleach solution to remove the shell. If there is no shell, the baby fish can't get hurt by eating them. I am not sure if this has been scientifically proven. If you remove the shell, the shrimp will be more likely to hatch.  The ones that don't are still edible. There are directions for doing it on the internet. I have tried do it a few times. It is a chore but it can be done. Care must be taken to not overdo it and kill all the shrimp. The ones that you see for sale are died. I think that the movement of the live shrimp encourages the fry to eat them and later hunt for brine shrimp.

Items needed:
air pump
airline tubing
brine shrimp net
brine shrimp eggs
salt (table or aquarium)
empty plastic pop bottle or container
air stone or weight with rubber band