Hatching Brine Shrimp easily
Hatching brine shrimp is quite easy, inexpensive, and beneficial as a food source especially if you are offering up 24-hour old nauptili. These would be baby brine shrimp with their yoke sack still attached, hence more nutritious. Two of the ingredients you already have if you have a saltwater aquarium running, and the rest is found online or perhaps at your local fish store (LFS).
Brine Shrimp hatching recipe:
- 2 cups tank water
- 1/2 cup RO/DI
- 1 tsp brine shrimp eggs
2 days gentle bubbling, 24 hours a day.
Keep it under a 100w light bulb the entire period, as this helps maintain the proper water temperature (78° F).
Remove/Stop airflow and allow to settle.
Siphon everything but the surface. Siphon the orangish stuff especially, and ignore the clearish water near the top.
Half of the collected nauptili was portioned to my 29g, the other half was given to my 55g. My 29g is heavily populated, and my 55g is about the same population in a larger amount of space and water.
I ordered two hatching stations from BrineShrimpDirect.com along with a fine net for collecting the newly hatched brine. By running two, I was able to have a new batch ready to collect every day. If you can't get a nice holder like above, here's a DIY method that works nicely as well.
Hatching Brine Shrimp from eggs takes about 48 hours. Feeding them immediately to the tank provides the most nourishment, because the yolk sacs are still attached. Even though tiny, everyone devours them!