As I am raising some clownfish, Brine Shrimp is a critical component to the little fry's diet. I will demonstrate my little setup and link to a few articles I found useful.

Out of the three foods needed for raising clowns, Brine Shrimp seems to be the easiest; Phytoplankton and Rotifers are the other two.

Setup

2 liter bottle
air hose - rigid and flexible
air hose gang valve
air pump
salt mix
turkey baster
brine shrimp eggs

Directions/Observations

- Any curved bottom fixture - I used a 2 liter bottle and cut the bottom off (Picture 2). Online I have seen a milk jug, a fancy plexiglass container, and the brine shrimp hatchery; some of the LFS have these(Picture 1).






- The salinity for the brine should be at 1.020 Many walk throughs didn't instruct aging the mixed water as we typically do for our tanks. I add 1 liter of water to 1 tablespoon of Reef Crystals. I then add 1/2 tsp of Brine eggs. I don't have a heater, but some sites say warmer, 80F, water slightly speeds up the hatching process. Since I am using a cut up 2 liter I don't have room for a heater and the light next to it can serve as a small source for heat.

- I bought my eggs off eBay in a 50g packet. Some of the products have the salt and eggs already mixed, SF Bay does this I believe. The first pic has some packets pictured, those have everything mixed.

- Once the water is mixed with salt and the brine shrimp eggs I insert the rigid air tube and slowly open the air gang valve. You want a small trickle in the hatchery, too much and the eggs will end up on the side of the container.

- I place the container next to my Rotifer culture which has a 6500K el'cheapo shop-light. There seems to be some disagreement if light is absolutely necessary. My experience says no, it isn't necessary, but since it is a neighbor to the rots, what the heck. Turn the light off when harvesting though, just like in Poltergeist, they "come to the light".

- In about 24 hours the shrimp will start hatching and the water will turn an orang-ish color. To harvest the shrimp, shut off the gang valve, wait a couple minutes and siphon with a turkey baster. The egg shells will float and the shrimp will sink to the bottom. You really want to get to the bottom of the container to get mostly shrimp and as little egg shells as possible. This will help reduce excess nutrients into the tank.

- The hatcheries, and other "like" versions, use gang valves with the tube inserted in the cap. When harvesting you open the valve to drain the shrimp out of the container, gravity fed.

- If feeding to fry, you need to limit the Brine Shrimp batch to 3 days. I believe this is the time-frame when the shrimp are the most nutritious and still have the yolk sack for food.

- After 3 days, I rinse out the container and start another batch. I dose the tank pretty heavily with the Brine Shrimp before I clean the container. I do this so my fry still have Brine Shrimp available while the new batch is starting.



I hope this is helpful and if I missed a step or there is a better method, please share.

Resources I found helpful
Brine Shrimp Direct
Raising Brine Shrimp