How Long Do Brine Shrimp Live After Hatching? The Complete Guide

Hatching Brine Shrimp Eggs

After checking our notes we found that we both use a very similar method for hatching brine shrimp. This method has been used by both of us since the early 1980s, so it is time-tested and all of the “bugs” have been worked out.

For a 2-liter soda bottle hatcher, we add 1.4 liters of warm (80° to 82°F) chloramine-containing (that’s right, we don’t use dechlor or anything else!) tap water (125 ppm GH and 3 degrees 54 ppm KH). Add 2 tablespoons of salt and a teaspoon of Epsom salt, stirring until dissolved. This gives a specific gravity of about 1.019. Both of us add about ½ tablespoon (1½ teaspoons, by weight 4.2 g) of brine shrimp eggs to the hatcher. Many of the brine shrimp companies have suggested using ½ teaspoon/liter, but we found that you don’t have that much of a loss in hatch rate. In our hatching table we’ve used a slightly lower amount of eggs for our 1 liter and 500 ml hatchers, which is slightly closer to the ½ teaspoon of eggs per liter.

Now both of us do something that most people don’t do. We add three drops of plain, unscented chlorine bleach. In the wild, mats or rafts of floating brine shrimp eggs can become rather nasty before harvest—they serve as a home to many types of bacteria and larger critters that can be harmful in our aquaria. Our friend and mentor Rosario LaCorte mentioned that he started adding the bleach to help lower some of the potential biological load that comes along with the brine shrimp eggs, and to kill any nasty hitchhikers that might be on the outer casing of the cysts. Even with the best processing methods, some undesirable critters can get through. The drops of bleach kill anything on the outside of the eggs without wasting the time of completely decapsulating the eggs.

Without the chlorine, when hatching larger quantities of eggs, you might notice that the eggs get scummy and may even start to clump together because of the bacteria. The chlorine evaporates fairly quickly with all of the bubbling of the eggs, so it’s not around to harm the brine shrimp when they hatch.

We both hatch our eggs at a temperature of 80° to 84°F with an ambient light source nearby. Eggs are vigorously bubbled with a rigid piece of 3/16-inch tubing at the bottom of the v-shaped bottle. Many websites recommend a light source to help hatch eggs, although we haven’t checked whether it really makes any difference. At these temperatures we (and most researchers) find that almost all of the eggs that are going to hatch have already hatched in 18 to 24 hours.

Again we stress that you want to feed the brine shrimp to your fish as soon as they hatch, as this is when they are the most nutritious. Over the next 12 hours they will begin to utilize these lipids and grow. For this entire period they cannot feed, as their mouth has not yet developed, so feeding them would be pointless. At this time the biggest risk thing we have to worry about is suffocation if there is too heavy a bioload in the water, such as from a large bacterial population, or if the water isn’t circulating rapidly enough.

If you wait longer than 12 hours post hatch they will have molted and they will need to be fed before feeding them to your fish. If you don’t need to hatch as many brine shrimp as we do each day then use a smaller hatching bottle (see table) and fewer eggs. You can enrich older shrimp by feeding a HUFA-containing supplement, though this will take up to an additional 12 hours after they have completed their first molt. Recently in his reading Mike discovered a method for enriching newly hatched brine shrimp or older shrimp with HUFAs.

Common Brine Shrimp Hatching Mistakes

Incorrect Measurements: Many people add too little or way too much salt. Either one can cause you not to have an optimal hatch. This is also true for measuring the shrimp eggs. If you start adding too much over our recommended ½ tablespoon per 1.4 liters of water, you will have diminishing returns.

Poor Quality Eggs and Improper Storage: Buy a one-pound sealed can of eggs and buy at least an 80 percent hatch rate. When you open them for the first time, pour the eggs in a jar that can be tightly sealed, store them in the freezer or the refrigerator, and add a food-grade desiccant pack to keep moisture down.

Retrieve the necessary eggs for hatching from the jar quickly and seal the lid tightly as soon as you are finished. You don’t want to keep introducing moisture to the eggs each time you open the container, and the natural humidity in the air will do that. Whatever you do, don’t bring the jar back up to room temperature each and every time you want to measure out some eggs. That’s a horrible waste of your time and it continues to freeze and thaw your eggs. Eggs stored properly will still produce high percentage hatches, even years after opening the can.

Using Soft Water: People living in areas of soft water have often complained that they can’t hatch brine shrimp. Measure the pH of your shrimp solution before and after hatching. If it’s still not pH 8 or higher after they hatch then you need to add some buffer to your water. Add about ¼ teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) per liter of hatching solution.

Incorrect Temperature: Below 78°F it will take up to 36 hours for most of your shrimp to hatch. You’ll end up waiting too long and end up with less nutritious shrimp as they molt into their second and third instars. Over about 86°F and the nauplii will suffocate quickly. You’ll end up with a smelly mess in the hatcher as well. If you don’t have warm fishrooms like ours, then put your hatchers in an old 10-gallon aquarium with a lid and a small 25-watt light. Check the temperature but you should be able to get somewhere in the range of 80° to 84°F degrees and you gain a light source, which is supposed to help with hatching. You can also fill a 10-gallon aquarium with 3 to 4 inches of water and a submersible heater to keep the hatcher warm. Again use a lid on the tank to keep the heat inside the tank and hatchers warm.

Not Enough Air Bubbling Through the Eggs: If the eggs come to rest they won’t hatch, and brine shrimp need oxygen to live. Gary the science nerd used a common 9- x 22-inch fish bag and measured how long it took to fill it to the 16-inch mark with air from the hatcher’s airline. He then filled the bag up to that mark with water and measured it. The flow rate is 1.6 liters of air per minute, but if you just bubble the heck out of it you’ll be close. Make sure you clean that rigid tubing out each time you clean the hatcher, too.

Reusing the Hatch Water: Tap water, salt, baking soda (if needed), and Epsom salt are all very inexpensive. It makes no economic, time-saving, or practical sense to reuse hatch water. The less than two cents per hatch you save will more than be made up for by the decreased hatch due to the fact that the reused water is filthy with biological material that competes with the newly hatched shrimp for oxygen. Sniff it. Would you use that water to raise food to feed any other animal? Why use it to raise food to feed your fish? You may have spent hundreds of hours working to get the spawn you are trying to feed, or they may be expensive fish. Why waste that time and money and use waste water?

In addition, if you use the “LaCorte bleach method” (which we strongly recommend) you will kill all of the bacteria, which will begin decomposing, and this will also compete with the nauplii for oxygen.

Finally, look at the time taken to prep the reused water. It is much more than that of setting up new water. We timed it. It only takes about 30 seconds to a minute to set up a fresh hatcher from beginning to end. Trying to filter out and remove unhatched cysts and dead shrimp from the waste water can take 5 to 10 minutes. There certainly is no time savings there.

How To: KEEP Brine Shrimp Alive For Longer…Simplest and Cheapest Way To Hatch BBS

FAQ

What is the life expectancy of brine shrimp?

In the wild, a brine shrimp’s lifespan can vary as it largely depends on environmental conditions. They live on average between two to three months. Brine shrimp kept as a sea monkey, however, can actually live much longer. As pets, they can live for up to a year.

Do brine shrimp need oxygen after hatching?

Not Enough Air Bubbling Through the Eggs: If the eggs come to rest they won’t hatch, and brine shrimp need oxygen to live. Gary the science nerd used a common 9- x 22-inch fish bag and measured how long it took to fill it to the 16-inch mark with air from the hatcher’s airline.

How to tell if brine shrimp are alive?

The unhatched eggs will not move, but once hatched, the shrimp will swim. Cysts will not respond to light; however, If you expose Brine Shrimp to light they will swim toward it (Phototaxis). Males have whiskers under their chins; females don’t.

Why are my baby brine shrimp dying?

Rapid changes in the salt concentration of the water, caused by the addition of a large amount of fresh water at one time, may kill the baby brine shrimp.