# Brine Shrimp Questions



## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

I tried the inverted pop bottle method of hatching brine shrimp, and it worked great. I have a few questions:

I used a jumbo eye dropper to harvest the shrimp. Should I get a fine meshed shrimp net instead?

How long will the shrimp live without feeding? Should I feed them?

There were a bunch of eggs floating. I think they are unhatched eggs. Should I remove them?

I've never tried hatching them before because it seemed like too much hassle. It was so simple and easy that I plan to do it regularly. Even fish as large as two inches love them.


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## Mykiss (Apr 22, 2010)

Hi Tom,

I usually use a glass or hard plastic tube with an airline hose attached to the end of it to syphon out the brine shrimp from the inverted pop bottle. 

Basically I take the air out of the pop bottle, wait 5 minutes until the empty eggs raise to the top and the unhatched eggs sink to the bottom. 

Then I wet the glass tube in freshwater and insert to the bottom of the pop bottle. If by doing so stirs up the eggs on the surface, then wait another few minutes for the eggs to raise to the top. 

Then syphon all the water/shrimp/unhatched eggs into another container. Make sure you stop the syphon just before all the floating eggs gets sucked into the glass tube so you don't get the floating eggs in your container. 

Then wait another 5 minutes so that the unhatched eggs settle to the bottom of your container. Once you've done that, you will see how well you have separated the floating eggs. If you did a lousy job not waiting long enough for the empty eggs to raise to the surface the first time or if you ended up sucking some for the floating eggs at the end, you will see the floating eggs during this stage. If there's floating eggs then you'd have to repeat step one.

Once you have got only shrimp and sinking eggs (which should be on the bottom after waiting a few minutes) then you slowly pour the shrimp/water into a new container and make sure you stop just before you start pouring out the eggs on the bottom of the container.



The shrimps will last about 3-4 days at 22 degrees C. Just make sure you have aeration as they will use up all the oxygen and all die if you don't. It's better if you keep them in a cooler environment as they will last longer.

Yes always remove eggs as they will block the digestive systems of small fish and kill the fish.

it's pretty easy with the pop bottle method. Good luck


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

Thanks Patrick.

Is there a reason to not just skim the unhatched eggs off the top, and leave the shrimps and unhatched eggs in the bottle?

Should I get a brine shrimp net for feeding, or use the eye dropper method? Can I make my own net with nylon stocking, or is that mesh the wrong size?


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## Mykiss (Apr 22, 2010)

It's very difficult to skim the top layer of eggs because a little bit of current will stir up the rest of the eggs. And especially when you want to prevent any eggs to me mixed in with the brine shrimp, it's better to not disturb the floating eggs.

If you don't mind adding salt water in the tank then I guess the eye dropper method is ok but I prefer using a net. That being said I hate using the brine shrimp nets you get at the stores as they will still miss a bunch of shrimps. I prefer to use a nitex net but it's very expensive.

I use a nitex net with a cross stitching ring. I've made and sold these in the past but it's not cheap. However, it's the bet brine shrimp net I have ever used and lasts a long time.

Nylon stocking is way to large for the newly hatched shrimps


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

Is there anywhere I can get a brine shrimp net? How much are they?


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