Bro this is the format I wish everyone would make content like this. Quick in depth and leaving no opinions straight facts ... clears up all confusion hell of a video
The reason the “UFO” style works and the Ziss style won’t work without the airline to tumble the eggs is that the water is too deep to hold oxygen at the bottom without agitation but the brine shrimp direct hatchery is shallow enough to have sufficient gas exchange over the surface area. Like others have already mentioned the brine shrimp direct hatchery can be convenient if you only want smaller quantities because it will hatch out usually over 4-5 days, I find that this actually gets me a higher yield overall (better total hatch rate) and is also handy because the shells separate out and only the freshly hatched brine shrimp are harvested constantly giving you only newly hatched shrimp.
I own both and personally found the Ziss to be my favorite way to go about this. I found the "UFO" style to be temperamental and often the eggs and shells would easily swoosh around making separation a disaster if you disturbed the UFO unit too much, say, by moving it from one location to another. It's rather unwieldy to try to move if you needed to. You need to be delicate with the UFO, i guess is what I'm saying. The Ziss style however, is elevated on legs. You point a light source near the bottom to get them to congregate towards the spout, and you catch from the bottom whatever amount you need. I find that if after establishing a new batch, I can harvest every twelve hours, collecting all the fresh born over a few days, as when I do not use a heater, it takes longer to hatch, so you can effectively spread a single dose of eggs, over a few days instead of harvesting them all at once with diminished nutrient levels. (you do want to feed the brine right away. within 12 hrs of hatching for maximum nutrient profile.) Anyways, clean up and restart is a breeze. You pour it down the drain, rinse, fill with water and scoops of salt and eggs, done. I just really didn't like the surgical dexterity to not accidentally bump or disturb the UFO style. So anyone reading this, get yourself the ziss style. It works great even if you only have 1-3 tanks as a home hobbyist.
@@archeyos I have 2 tanks at home usually with fry and I find for my use the brine shrimp direct hatchery (UFO) works well, I don’t need to move it I just set it up and move the hatched brine shrimp instead of the hatchery, I also don’t feed brine shrimp all the time because I like to vary the food sources, if you use the hatchery as intended you won’t have any issues with egg separation, if you need a higher yield the Ziss hatchery is the way to go
4-5 days? Not for me. You must be doing something wrong to your water. Try playing around with different salt levels. Possibly try a smidge of baking soda. Put a regular aquarium light on top of your hatchery for and easy way to get the necessary light and heat. My UFO hatchery begins hatching BBS in less than 16 hours; Peak population of BBS swimming in the sieve is around 20-48 hours; After 48 hours, the BBS population swimming in the sieve begins gradually dwindling; BBS can still be found swimming in the sieve 5+ days later (although I would not harvest them at this point as their nutritional value drops off quite a bit after 12 or so hours).
Hey Blake, great video as always. I’ve been using the UFO method for a long time now. I 3d printed my own version. Although the quantities are much smaller with the UFO, one thing worth noting is that, unlike the Ziss, you get 100% pure BBS with no shells or unhatched eggs. I believe I get a better fry survival rate with pure BBS. Once set up I find it runs for 3 to 4 days, producing sufficient BBS for 500+ angelfish fry. At room temperature, the brine shrimp continue to hatch for multiple days. I think my hatch rate with the UFO is on par with the Ziss. The Ziss is still my go-to if I need volume. Keep up the great work!
Great video mate :) i think hatching BBS is just like keeping a tank , its very situational. Everyones water is different, everyones brine eggs are different. You just have to find what works for your situation. My best move was when I switched from regular salt to “reef salt” which buffed my tap water from 7 ph upto 8-8.5 and that increased my hatch rate enormously.
Great video Blake!! I literally just starting hatching brine shrimp again after a hiatus of not feeding live food and my eggs went bad, so this is super helpful. Cheers mate, keep up the great content
I use four of the "UFO" style hatcheries. Setting up a fresh one each day, I can harvest brine shrimp for several days from each hatchery. (and multiple times a day.) I find I get much better results then what you have shown, but those results come at 36 hours and last until the fourth day. It's enough to feed fry and give my fish a treat in my small 20 tank fish room. Great video!
Very interesting experiment blake😊i have a ziss blender hatchery, i dont use a heater i use 2 tablespoons of salt and 1/4 tablespoon of BBS basement temp is approximately 70f i usually dont harvest until about 30-36 hrs , ive not tried a 24 hatch this video helps alot thanks mate👍🏻👍🏻
Hi Blake, Mike, from England calling. I found your experiment really useful in helping me with my early attempts at hatching BBS. I would be interested to know the PH of your tap water before adding Baking Soda. Cheers Mike, and keep the videos coming.
Did you use roughly the same number of eggs in both batches? Either way, this has got to be my favourite video of yours so far (I’ve watched quite a few, than for sharing such useful content)! Thanks for the “fishroom science”, that was a lot of effort but it paid off with awesome content. Would love to see more videos like this! If you were to try it again, I think using a microscope (because ofc we all have one of those kicking around the house 😂) you could try counting number of shrimp per ml roughly to get a better idea. In the bi carb experiment I wondered whether some of the batches looked less “orange” because the water was less clear; it seemed like the most extreme was definitely too much, but from the video it looks like the middle two may have had more than the first. Ofc you can see much better than we can IRL though! 😊
Natural daylight, 0.025 specific gravity and temps of 76 f to 80 f. I've been hatching BBS for 40 plus years and for me the best results come from the above mentioned parameters. I use two 2 gallon ( British gallons not U.S. gallons ) glass hatchers. Two teaspoons of eggs are left to hatch for an average of 46 -48 hrs using rock salt. Come harvest time, i allow the solution to settle for 5 minutes or so, then strain into a handkerchief over a bucket. I harvest no less than 4 teaspoons of hatched shrimp of which i use half and reserve the 2nd half in the 2nd hatcher (to be used the following day). And yes they remain alive & healthy for that next day feeding. Using a magnifying glass i'm guessing that BBS are just a bit more than twice the size of the egg, so your yield of hatched shrimp will indicate what hatch rate you're getting.
Thank you so much for this video it was the best one I’ve seen yet comparing many ways of hatching Brine shrimp. I appreciate the effort you put into it
One minor but important point. You are using the terms 'baking powder' and 'baking soda' interchangeably. They are not the same. We are adding baking soda to raise the Ph. Baking soda is bicarbonate of soda and it does exactly what we want, it raises the ph. Baking powder does contain bicarbonate of soda but also other ingredients including corn starch. Once activated it releases carbon dioxide which will actually lower the Ph and also the amount of oxygen in the mix, two things we want to avoid. Additionally the amount that is required is entirely dependant on the Ph of our tap water, some people will have 8.7 - 8.2 straight out of the tap in which case you're good to go without adding any bicarbonate of soda, other people may have tap water at 6.2 in which case they need to add a reasonable amount to get the desired Ph.
Yep my mistake. I meant baking soda and bicarb soda as the interchangeable terms. To be honest baking powder and its differences I was unaware until another viewer made the same correction 👍 thanks
Thanks for the huge test, a whole lot of effort put in this video so I thank you for that, after watching this I changed my setup just a touch to be better with the UFO, I’m running a heater and I figured the air tube wouldn’t work in it so my thought was to get all the eggs into the water so I did that manually time consuming but the heater at 28 is a small 10w usb heater and the cable fits through that open close slot, I ended up with a hatch rate 10 times the yield I had any other time, so I guess it’s getting those eggs into the water hence the air tube and having the heating on makes the difference. I have a reef tank and always use the salt water from that, ie: salinity same as the ocean and that works fine. Again thanks for the video!
Thanks for comparing the two different hatcheries side by side! I have been wondering about the saucer style for a while. Can't say I wasn't rooting for that one over the ziss!
Definitely get the saucer style hatchery if you have not already. It is worth every penny which is probably why the price is so high (for pieces of plastic). The results shown in this video do not do the saucer hatchery any justice. You can feed at least 5 nano tanks (10gal/38L or less) with a single hatch in the saucer style. The sieve will have you harvesting golden circles of BBS at least 10-15 times per hatch with virtually ZERO egg shells.
What do you feed hatchlings? I use an electric coffeebean grinder and grind a mixture of algae pellets, spirulina flakes and a few dried meal worms until its fine as baby powder. What do you think?
Great video. Really helpful. Shall be trying the zoss put as i already have the ufo and the quantity looks far better. Be great for the Koi fry challenge im about to embark on
Hi Blake, Do you think you would have different results if you had optimized the UFO system as much as you did the Ziss system? OTOH one must stop somewhere. I use two UFO systems to feed 3 planted nano tanks.
Great video, thanks for all the work you put into it. I really appreciated it. I only need a small amount for my guppy babies so think I’ll be getting the ufo 🇦🇺❤️
I know it seems unnecessary, but you should test the other temps with diff salt levels, there could be a sweet spot at a lower temp/higher salt concentration that you haven’t gone looking for😊
What was the beginning pH of your own water? Also, I saw a 1Tbsp/Gallon recommendation for salt. 1.4 litres is about 0.31 gallons, so your salt seems a lot. I'm glad you revised the measure!!
Hi Blake thanks for the video and your channel I have learnt heaps from you. I have a good tip for using the ufo hatchery. I have one of the ufo style and a home made drink bottle style hatchery. I have found that often I get a small amount of unhatched eggs at the bottom of the bottle hatchery and I use the ufo style one to hatch those eggs out. I let the drink bottle hatchery settle and let a small amount of the mixture out at the bottom into the ufo hatchery containing the unhatched eggs, and top up with salty water. I then harvest the rest of the mixture like normal. .Over the next day I get good snack amount of those unhatched eggs hatching out of the ufo hatchery great for feeding the new born fry while the next batch is bubbling away., It does a great job of separating the hatched egg shells from the baby brine shrimp,
Great video, something I've wanted to do myself but can't afford the artemia blenders or vast quantities of brine shrimp needed lol. Just want to point out that baking soda and baking powder are 2 very different things and cannot be used interchangeably as you implied. You want to use pure baking soda like you did because baking powder also contains an acid and cornstarch that could either do some harm or have undesirable effects.
Awesome video Blake, thanks for sharing your experience. I've been struggling with BBS a lot recently and you've given me some ideas to work with. One question though as I noticed that on your decent batches there were no unhatched eggs at the bottom, at least I think they're unhatched eggs. My understanding is that hatched egg shells would float but unhatched eggs(after saturation) sink. My problem being, whenever I harvest I have a significant amount of unhatched eggs at the valve(under the BBS) and these end up in my harvest. Your thoughts.
Sorry to interrupt but you may find this useful. You are correct, the shells from the hatched eggs float on the surface and the unhatched eggs sink to the bottom. The hatched brine shrimp if left to their own devices swim about but in the main sink to the bottom of the hatching container where they are mixed with the unhatched eggs. They are impossible to separate from the live brine shrimp. What I have done is to turn off the airflow after 24 hours and shine a torch on one side of the container about half way up. newly hatched brine shrimp are attracted to light so they will swim up to where the bright light is. The unhatched eggs obviously stay at the bottom of the container. By doing this you have separated the shells to the top, the unhatched eggs to the bottom and the live brine shrimp to the middle. You can now syphon the shrimp out from midwater and leave everything else behind. Run your harvest through a brine shrimp net and return the water back into the container and replace the air line. You'll find that the majority of the unhatched eggs will now hatch, they just needed a little more time. You get a very clean harvest this way.
Just wanted to add to this suggestion. I've been re-tumbling the unhatched eggs after harvesting(back in the same water), trying different time lengths. I've done an extra 6 hours, 12 hours & 24 hours twice each now to ensure consistent results. I have to say that none of the extra time has generated any significant further hatches. To add context, where I live the water is very soft. I use a Ziss with 1.8ltrs of water, 70gm table salt, 8gm Bicarb & lvl Tbsp of eggs tumbled for 26 hours with light @28.5 Celsius . I also tried a couple of batches using the recommended 17gm salt per litre. The eggs hatched ok, but you could tell the BBS died by the smell so I reverted to my usual recipe. What I did find that helped significantly was another suggestion in this discussion. I pre-soaked the eggs in fresh water, no air bubbles for 3 hours prior to adding the salt & air. This made a huge difference to my hatch rates such that I've had to cut to 3/4 Tbsp eggs as I was making too much to use. Thanks heaps for the help. @@BlakesAquatics
Do you have to make a new culture every day for a spawn? I worry that if I’m only working with two spawns, I will waste way more than I feed. Maybe use the UFO to make less food and use less product? Thanks!!
I’ve got the ufo one also I think it’s great for your average hobbyist, if your a big fish breeder or have heaps of tanks the volume isn’t enough. I can tell you though the harvest you got from the ufo is much much less than I typically get. Also as others have mentioned I havest for up to 3 days from the one batch with zero shells. It definitely has its place I’m very happy with mine. I did enjoy your experiment though A for effort mate.
@@BlakesAquatics The big one that looks like a blender. As far as 3D printer, in the vid description,it says you sell 3D prints on etsy. Some folks sell their 3D programming on the web for things theyve created. I thought you sold the programming for 3D printing to make the blender style hatchery. EDIT... Thanks anyway.I see them on sale in the web.
Hel blake i love this video. but there are only 17.7 grams of salt in a tablespoon. You said you used 300 grams. That can't be right(?) as that hatchery pamphlet asks for two tablespoons or roughly 36 grams. am I crazy or did you misspeak?
Great experiment Blake! I recently ordered a can (425g) of brine shrimp eggs, Aquamaster brand, from AliExpress. The eggs won’t hatch at all despite all the tries I’ve done. I’m using a DIY bottle hatchery, 1tsp eggs, 1tsp salt, 26C, normal air and fish room ambient light. I’ve done over 10 batches and not even a single egg hatched. I even kept one running for about a week and still nothing. I think it was nuked during shipping due to the summer heat. Now I’m left with a whole can of bad eggs. Do you know if there’s a way to “revive” these eggs? Or something I should try differently? Right now I just have the eggs stored in the fridge.
At what point would you say it makes sense to start hatching brine shrimp? I only have two tanks, is it worth the effort to make a DIY brine shrimp hatchery? Can you make really small batches?
from what i've heard, the less air (you only need enough to move the water, not enough to put oxygen in the air, too much just beats the lil critters against each other until they break apart into pieces) The only benefit of the light is that it helps to grow algae, and they eat the algae... it isn't even very efficient at that... if you had a bit of water out in the sunlight growing algae and scooped up some of the green water and feed it to the brine shrimp whenever it doesn't seem to have any green left and all goes back brown.. then you'll be fine. fish like eating live food, your ziss has brine shrimp soup, .. you basically wind up with much more waste. if you were to grow out those brine shrimp you would really see the difference.. and that is where you will really learn more about how well your system is working or not, in my honest opinion. you feed your babies micro worms.. do you chop them up before you do? (of course not) why chop up the brine shrimp? it's that simple to me.
Hi Blake, what is the brand name and size of the heater(s) you were able fit in each ziss hatchery? My spare heaters are either too long or their diameter is to large to fit throught the hole in the lid.
Yes but if your house is on rainwater tanks your ph will be too low. Ph8 is best for brine shrimp. I found a pinch of Seachem alkaline buffer does the job great.
I always pre soak my eggs , so as a batch is hatching I have one soaking and when the first batch is ready the next eggs are ready and the eggs are pre softened . I have huge hatch rates that way
@@BlakesAquaticsshould have asked Mats at Blackwater for advice on this one 😆 he did all the hard work experimenting already. Has the best hatch rate & salt ratio etc for eggs from different regions. It depends on origin of eggs with salt ratio, baking soda, temps etc👍 love his eggs😊
I don’t really think the baking soda test was conclusive it’s based off your water PH so we need that info then we would need the PH of each of the test hatcheries. If your water PH is under 7 you’ll def need to add baking soda but if you’re over 7PH you should be fine without baking soda unless the bbs brand your eggs are from suggest a higher PH level like 8PH for the best hatch rate. Also as far as air the UFO doesn’t need an air system because it’s not as deep.
I wish people would weigh their salt and not measure it. Salt grind size can impact volume drastically. I have measured 2 brands of salt and one had about 25 grams difference in a cup volume.
My tap water comes out at 7.1-7.5 so baking soda does make a fair difference. With just salt and water that had been conditioned I had a success rate of about 50-60% hatch rate. When I left the chlorine in the water and added a pinch of baking soda I was seeing a considerably higher hatch rate. I heard that the chlorine being acid helps break down the shell of the brine shrimp and makes it easier to hatch. It also gasses off after about 8-10 hours in an air powered hatchery. So before the shrimp would be exposed.
Light only impacts them if the uv or ir output in the light is high. If you have terrestrial plant grow lights above your tank and run your hatchery next to it you won't see a good success rate
The pipette method for measuring hatch rate is not relevant for the UFO hatchery. The Ziss/UFO hatcheries harvest differently. The UFO uses a sieve, recollecting more and more brine throughout a 12-24 hour time window (when the artemia still have optimal nutritional values as fish food). I get gobs and gobs and GOBS of BBS. Too much in fact. For someone with up to 5 nano tanks (10gal/38L or less), a single UFO hatchery can easily over-feed every tank in a single hatch. No one with 5 or less nano tanks should be buying a Ziss. I also get way more hatches with my UFO hatchery than you. Make sure you have the air pocket open on the edge of the lid.
You are not using the UFO corectly, eggs should be only in the outer ring, you had them all around. I am using this method twice every week and I get first 3 days a decent yeald for my 3 aquariums, I have left the UFO for week and it was giving small about of yeald even on the day seven. I have never used these special hatcheries, I do not like sound of bublers. I would recommend to clean them with hydrogen peroxide, I have success to mix the salt in warm water around 40°C and when I put the eggs in the UFO the temperature is around 30°C that helps with hatching. I do 18-20grams of salt to 700ml of wather for the UFO and it works well.
I also use the UFO hatchery and found that the ambient temperature is its only issue for what creates more yield. So if nighttime ambient temp drops, it is delayed and also not give as much. That is the only issue I found. Otherwise it is easier to not have any egg shells with this method. As you can see the results in video, the hatchery tube showed dead stuff on bottom and foggy waters, so he should have used a net to rinse, and then put in tube to compare. But it does show less with UFO. I never saw it so low. On mine the accumulate into a very dense area of hatch in middle. Using a added light is also an issue because it will light up the whole area inside, instead of letting the critters swim to ambient light in center . Should also try more testing for finding optional results with UFO, because the video did find optimal results for hatcherys. No matter this was a very informative video.
@@Maxx134a I do not have issue with ambient temperature since I keep the room at 24°C. I use USB light on it on the end I use turkey baster or what you call it in English to scope last bits of live artemia out. Unfortunatelly I am not able to get all the alive out of the hatchery since and I do not want to use the eggs separator so they end up in drain.
Man how can you run them at 22c it's 34c in my room 😂.I also add a pH buffer to my water.Can you make a video of growing them out.Thats what I'm struggling with.And I think my cichlids would struggle with brineshrimp the size of Harry lol.
Please excuse my brain fades interchanging cups and tablespoons 😅
2 to 3 tablespoons of salt is what I found to work best for the 1.4L of water
What about for about 32oz water ???
@@VaDirtfishing 2 tablespoons
Bro this is the format I wish everyone would make content like this. Quick in depth and leaving no opinions straight facts ... clears up all confusion hell of a video
Do you know the ppt or specific gravity? Trying to grow brine shrimp and your video is very helpful, thank you
@@BlakesAquatics the hatchery is 2 liters? Why mention this per 1.4L ?
The reason the “UFO” style works and the Ziss style won’t work without the airline to tumble the eggs is that the water is too deep to hold oxygen at the bottom without agitation but the brine shrimp direct hatchery is shallow enough to have sufficient gas exchange over the surface area.
Like others have already mentioned the brine shrimp direct hatchery can be convenient if you only want smaller quantities because it will hatch out usually over 4-5 days, I find that this actually gets me a higher yield overall (better total hatch rate) and is also handy because the shells separate out and only the freshly hatched brine shrimp are harvested constantly giving you only newly hatched shrimp.
Great to know thanks 👍👍
I own both and personally found the Ziss to be my favorite way to go about this. I found the "UFO" style to be temperamental and often the eggs and shells would easily swoosh around making separation a disaster if you disturbed the UFO unit too much, say, by moving it from one location to another. It's rather unwieldy to try to move if you needed to. You need to be delicate with the UFO, i guess is what I'm saying. The Ziss style however, is elevated on legs. You point a light source near the bottom to get them to congregate towards the spout, and you catch from the bottom whatever amount you need. I find that if after establishing a new batch, I can harvest every twelve hours, collecting all the fresh born over a few days, as when I do not use a heater, it takes longer to hatch, so you can effectively spread a single dose of eggs, over a few days instead of harvesting them all at once with diminished nutrient levels. (you do want to feed the brine right away. within 12 hrs of hatching for maximum nutrient profile.) Anyways, clean up and restart is a breeze. You pour it down the drain, rinse, fill with water and scoops of salt and eggs, done. I just really didn't like the surgical dexterity to not accidentally bump or disturb the UFO style. So anyone reading this, get yourself the ziss style. It works great even if you only have 1-3 tanks as a home hobbyist.
@@archeyos I have 2 tanks at home usually with fry and I find for my use the brine shrimp direct hatchery (UFO) works well, I don’t need to move it I just set it up and move the hatched brine shrimp instead of the hatchery, I also don’t feed brine shrimp all the time because I like to vary the food sources, if you use the hatchery as intended you won’t have any issues with egg separation, if you need a higher yield the Ziss hatchery is the way to go
4-5 days? Not for me. You must be doing something wrong to your water. Try playing around with different salt levels. Possibly try a smidge of baking soda. Put a regular aquarium light on top of your hatchery for and easy way to get the necessary light and heat.
My UFO hatchery begins hatching BBS in less than 16 hours;
Peak population of BBS swimming in the sieve is around 20-48 hours;
After 48 hours, the BBS population swimming in the sieve begins gradually dwindling;
BBS can still be found swimming in the sieve 5+ days later (although I would not harvest them at this point as their nutritional value drops off quite a bit after 12 or so hours).
ROFLMAO " Harry here, my hatched brine shrimp egg" LOL, That was so funny
Hey Blake, great video as always. I’ve been using the UFO method for a long time now. I 3d printed my own version. Although the quantities are much smaller with the UFO, one thing worth noting is that, unlike the Ziss, you get 100% pure BBS with no shells or unhatched eggs. I believe I get a better fry survival rate with pure BBS. Once set up I find it runs for 3 to 4 days, producing sufficient BBS for 500+ angelfish fry. At room temperature, the brine shrimp continue to hatch for multiple days. I think my hatch rate with the UFO is on par with the Ziss. The Ziss is still my go-to if I need volume. Keep up the great work!
@@dingdangdoo1400 oh wow... How to you 3d print? Do you mind sharing the STL?
Alguém sabe dizer o nome do Aerador q Blake utiliza e apresenta no vídeo , Por favor ?
As an American who is trying to troubleshoot his recent attempt at hatching brine shrimp, I really appreciate the Fahrenheit subtitles.
Great Video, TLD, 28⁰C (82⁰F) with 2-3Tbsp per 1.4L (0.37 Gallons) of water, with some airflow and no baking soda. Ganna try this out today. Thank you
Great video mate :) i think hatching BBS is just like keeping a tank , its very situational. Everyones water is different, everyones brine eggs are different. You just have to find what works for your situation. My best move was when I switched from regular salt to “reef salt” which buffed my tap water from 7 ph upto 8-8.5 and that increased my hatch rate enormously.
Very true! Thanks mate
Great video Blake!! I literally just starting hatching brine shrimp again after a hiatus of not feeding live food and my eggs went bad, so this is super helpful. Cheers mate, keep up the great content
Always keep your eggs in the freezer if you are not already.
Very informative and well thought out side by side experiment to hatching brine shrimp.
So nice of you
Wonderful video Blake. Taught me a ton about the brine shrimp. Your son is adorable and thank you.
Thanks so much
Very interesting video Blake. Thanks for taking the time to make it.
I use four of the "UFO" style hatcheries. Setting up a fresh one each day, I can harvest brine shrimp for several days from each hatchery. (and multiple times a day.) I find I get much better results then what you have shown, but those results come at 36 hours and last until the fourth day. It's enough to feed fry and give my fish a treat in my small 20 tank fish room.
Great video!
Great to know I might have to set one up for more time in that case
Great experiment Blake, well done.
Great video, Blake. Very insightful.
More salt means water is denser and more of the egs flow to top. This makes is easier for separation since there are no eggs at the bottom.
Very interesting experiment blake😊i have a ziss blender hatchery, i dont use a heater i use 2 tablespoons of salt and 1/4 tablespoon of BBS basement temp is approximately 70f i usually dont harvest until about 30-36 hrs , ive not tried a 24 hatch this video helps alot thanks mate👍🏻👍🏻
Sounds great!
Love this one. Great analysis
Much appreciated!
This video was so helpful. I started live feeding a couple months back and had ALL THESE QUESTIONS. Thanks for doing the work. Liked and subscribed.
Glad it was helpful!
great idea mate. awesome video
Loved this video, great idea! Thanks I enjoyed it
Hi Blake, Mike, from England calling. I found your experiment really useful in helping me with my early attempts at hatching BBS. I would be interested to know the PH of your tap water before adding Baking Soda. Cheers Mike, and keep the videos coming.
Thanks for the Experiments and tests, i really need that information
Uff thanks!!
Did you use roughly the same number of eggs in both batches?
Either way, this has got to be my favourite video of yours so far (I’ve watched quite a few, than for sharing such useful content)! Thanks for the “fishroom science”, that was a lot of effort but it paid off with awesome content. Would love to see more videos like this!
If you were to try it again, I think using a microscope (because ofc we all have one of those kicking around the house 😂) you could try counting number of shrimp per ml roughly to get a better idea.
In the bi carb experiment I wondered whether some of the batches looked less “orange” because the water was less clear; it seemed like the most extreme was definitely too much, but from the video it looks like the middle two may have had more than the first. Ofc you can see much better than we can IRL though! 😊
Natural daylight, 0.025 specific gravity and temps of 76 f to 80 f.
I've been hatching BBS for 40 plus years and for me the best results come from the above mentioned parameters. I use two 2 gallon ( British gallons not U.S. gallons ) glass hatchers. Two teaspoons of eggs are left to hatch for an average of 46 -48 hrs using rock salt. Come harvest time, i allow the solution to settle for 5 minutes or so, then strain into a handkerchief over a bucket. I harvest no less than 4 teaspoons of hatched shrimp of which i use half and reserve the 2nd half in the 2nd hatcher (to be used the following day). And yes they remain alive & healthy for that next day feeding. Using a magnifying glass i'm guessing that BBS are just a bit more than twice the size of the egg, so your yield of hatched shrimp will indicate what hatch rate you're getting.
Gotta do what works 👍
Really helpful 🙏👍👍
Glad it was helpful!
awesome video blake, thx✌✌
Thank you so much for this video it was the best one I’ve seen yet comparing many ways of hatching Brine shrimp. I appreciate the effort you put into it
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for a nice series of experiments. Now we know which parameters to use.
You are welcome!
One minor but important point. You are using the terms 'baking powder' and 'baking soda' interchangeably. They are not the same. We are adding baking soda to raise the Ph. Baking soda is bicarbonate of soda and it does exactly what we want, it raises the ph. Baking powder does contain bicarbonate of soda but also other ingredients including corn starch. Once activated it releases carbon dioxide which will actually lower the Ph and also the amount of oxygen in the mix, two things we want to avoid. Additionally the amount that is required is entirely dependant on the Ph of our tap water, some people will have 8.7 - 8.2 straight out of the tap in which case you're good to go without adding any bicarbonate of soda, other people may have tap water at 6.2 in which case they need to add a reasonable amount to get the desired Ph.
Yep my mistake. I meant baking soda and bicarb soda as the interchangeable terms. To be honest baking powder and its differences I was unaware until another viewer made the same correction 👍 thanks
Great job Blake!! This was an awesome idea and I appreciate the time you put in to do it!
Thanks for the huge test, a whole lot of effort put in this video so I thank you for that, after watching this I changed my setup just a touch to be better with the UFO, I’m running a heater and I figured the air tube wouldn’t work in it so my thought was to get all the eggs into the water so I did that manually time consuming but the heater at 28 is a small 10w usb heater and the cable fits through that open close slot, I ended up with a hatch rate 10 times the yield I had any other time, so I guess it’s getting those eggs into the water hence the air tube and having the heating on makes the difference. I have a reef tank and always use the salt water from that, ie: salinity same as the ocean and that works fine.
Again thanks for the video!
Great video with a lot of time and effort put in, appreciate it. I bet your fish appreciated it as well, they must have been well fed for that month!
Absolutely 😄 cheers
This was awesome, thank you! 👀🍿🍿
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for comparing the two different hatcheries side by side! I have been wondering about the saucer style for a while. Can't say I wasn't rooting for that one over the ziss!
Definitely get the saucer style hatchery if you have not already. It is worth every penny which is probably why the price is so high (for pieces of plastic).
The results shown in this video do not do the saucer hatchery any justice. You can feed at least 5 nano tanks (10gal/38L or less) with a single hatch in the saucer style.
The sieve will have you harvesting golden circles of BBS at least 10-15 times per hatch with virtually ZERO egg shells.
What an awesome experiment man the factors considered are spot on.
Just started hatching BBS as a breeder and this is awesome info.
Very Good video and i like test like this thank you Blake for this video and greetings from Iceland
Thank you very much!
What do you feed hatchlings? I use an electric coffeebean grinder and grind a mixture of algae pellets, spirulina flakes and a few dried meal worms until its fine as baby powder. What do you think?
Great video. Really helpful. Shall be trying the zoss put as i already have the ufo and the quantity looks far better. Be great for the Koi fry challenge im about to embark on
Hi Blake, Do you think you would have different results if you had optimized the UFO system as much as you did the Ziss system? OTOH one must stop somewhere. I use two UFO systems to feed 3 planted nano tanks.
Great test. Thanks for sharing
Really great video!! Thank you.
Great video, thanks for all the work you put into it. I really appreciated it. I only need a small amount for my guppy babies so think I’ll be getting the ufo 🇦🇺❤️
The ufo definitely has its conveniences!
Excellent video. You and your wife both had more patience than I have hahaha.
🤣 thanks
Awesome, I have four hobby sets, going to definitely have to try your way too😂 just got some new eggs too! Thanks
Have fun!
I know it seems unnecessary, but you should test the other temps with diff salt levels, there could be a sweet spot at a lower temp/higher salt concentration that you haven’t gone looking for😊
thanka for all the hard work
What was the beginning pH of your own water? Also, I saw a 1Tbsp/Gallon recommendation for salt. 1.4 litres is about 0.31 gallons, so your salt seems a lot. I'm glad you revised the measure!!
7.6 ph 0 kh 0 gh. Very soft tap water
I am so glad I bought a bubbling brine shrimp hatchery. Good science project here.
Awesome! Thank you!
I'd be curious to know if the bubble size matters. Airstone vs no airstone. Great job, thanks for running these experiments and sharing with us! 👍
Great suggestion!
Hi Blake thanks for the video and your channel I have learnt heaps from you. I have a good tip for using the ufo hatchery. I have one of the ufo style and a home made drink bottle style hatchery. I have found that often I get a small amount of unhatched eggs at the bottom of the bottle hatchery and I use the ufo style one to hatch those eggs out. I let the drink bottle hatchery settle and let a small amount of the mixture out at the bottom into the ufo hatchery containing the unhatched eggs, and top up with salty water. I then harvest the rest of the mixture like normal. .Over the next day I get good snack amount of those unhatched eggs hatching out of the ufo hatchery great for feeding the new born fry while the next batch is bubbling away., It does a great job of separating the hatched egg shells from the baby brine shrimp,
Great tip! Thanks for the comment
Would 12 tablespoons of salt work for 1.5 gallons?
the UFO works MUCH better than this video suggests. it hatchs a ton. good comparisons with the other stuff. i was wondering about baking soda today
Great Video Blake, just a quick question, in the ZISS air hatchery, how long do the brine shrimp last after hatching? thx... :)
You can easily draw it down for 2 or 3 days with the air running. I just turn it down slightly
Great experiment. Question - do you store open fish food in room temperature? Or in the fridge?
@@byz513 dry fish food? Room temp
Great video, something I've wanted to do myself but can't afford the artemia blenders or vast quantities of brine shrimp needed lol. Just want to point out that baking soda and baking powder are 2 very different things and cannot be used interchangeably as you implied. You want to use pure baking soda like you did because baking powder also contains an acid and cornstarch that could either do some harm or have undesirable effects.
Good to know thanks
Awesome video Blake, thanks for sharing your experience. I've been struggling with BBS a lot recently and you've given me some ideas to work with. One question though as I noticed that on your decent batches there were no unhatched eggs at the bottom, at least I think they're unhatched eggs. My understanding is that hatched egg shells would float but unhatched eggs(after saturation) sink. My problem being, whenever I harvest I have a significant amount of unhatched eggs at the valve(under the BBS) and these end up in my harvest. Your thoughts.
Sorry to interrupt but you may find this useful.
You are correct, the shells from the hatched eggs float on the surface and the unhatched eggs sink to the bottom. The hatched brine shrimp if left to their own devices swim about but in the main sink to the bottom of the hatching container where they are mixed with the unhatched eggs. They are impossible to separate from the live brine shrimp.
What I have done is to turn off the airflow after 24 hours and shine a torch on one side of the container about half way up. newly hatched brine shrimp are attracted to light so they will swim up to where the bright light is. The unhatched eggs obviously stay at the bottom of the container. By doing this you have separated the shells to the top, the unhatched eggs to the bottom and the live brine shrimp to the middle. You can now syphon the shrimp out from midwater and leave everything else behind. Run your harvest through a brine shrimp net and return the water back into the container and replace the air line. You'll find that the majority of the unhatched eggs will now hatch, they just needed a little more time. You get a very clean harvest this way.
What andy said 😄
Just wanted to add to this suggestion. I've been re-tumbling the unhatched eggs after harvesting(back in the same water), trying different time lengths. I've done an extra 6 hours, 12 hours & 24 hours twice each now to ensure consistent results. I have to say that none of the extra time has generated any significant further hatches. To add context, where I live the water is very soft. I use a Ziss with 1.8ltrs of water, 70gm table salt, 8gm Bicarb & lvl Tbsp of eggs tumbled for 26 hours with light @28.5 Celsius . I also tried a couple of batches using the recommended 17gm salt per litre. The eggs hatched ok, but you could tell the BBS died by the smell so I reverted to my usual recipe. What I did find that helped significantly was another suggestion in this discussion. I pre-soaked the eggs in fresh water, no air bubbles for 3 hours prior to adding the salt & air. This made a huge difference to my hatch rates such that I've had to cut to 3/4 Tbsp eggs as I was making too much to use. Thanks heaps for the help. @@BlakesAquatics
Do you have to make a new culture every day for a spawn? I worry that if I’m only working with two spawns, I will waste way more than I feed. Maybe use the UFO to make less food and use less product? Thanks!!
Nice video, good topic. I like 78°F
Any chance you remember what hz the heaters you used are?
I’ve got the ufo one also I think it’s great for your average hobbyist, if your a big fish breeder or have heaps of tanks the volume isn’t enough. I can tell you though the harvest you got from the ufo is much much less than I typically get. Also as others have mentioned I havest for up to 3 days from the one batch with zero shells. It definitely has its place I’m very happy with mine. I did enjoy your experiment though A for effort mate.
Thanks. First time using it so I might have to keep playing around with it
Thank you
Like the hatcheries.But I dont have a 3D printer. Do you make n sell them?
The ufo style ones or the ziss? neither are 3d printed sorry I am a bit confused by the question
@@BlakesAquatics The big one that looks like a blender.
As far as 3D printer, in the vid description,it says you sell 3D prints on etsy. Some folks sell their 3D programming on the web for things theyve created. I thought you sold the programming for 3D printing to make the blender style hatchery.
EDIT...
Thanks anyway.I see them on sale in the web.
Hi! I thought these containers held 2Litres of water. You mention that you are using 1.2 litres and the containers look almost full. Can you explain.
What is the best heater you have used so far? I've got one 25 watt, but temp. is all over the top and not reliable at all...
I quite like aquael ultra heaters
Hel blake i love this video. but there are only 17.7 grams of salt in a tablespoon. You said you used 300 grams. That can't be right(?) as that hatchery pamphlet asks for two tablespoons or roughly 36 grams. am I crazy or did you misspeak?
Correct I misspoke. 3 tablespoons
I use a salinity calculator and my 2gallon container needs like 113g salt.
Great experiment Blake!
I recently ordered a can (425g) of brine shrimp eggs, Aquamaster brand, from AliExpress. The eggs won’t hatch at all despite all the tries I’ve done. I’m using a DIY bottle hatchery, 1tsp eggs, 1tsp salt, 26C, normal air and fish room ambient light.
I’ve done over 10 batches and not even a single egg hatched. I even kept one running for about a week and still nothing.
I think it was nuked during shipping due to the summer heat.
Now I’m left with a whole can of bad eggs. Do you know if there’s a way to “revive” these eggs? Or something I should try differently?
Right now I just have the eggs stored in the fridge.
Hey mate, sorry to say I have never had much luck reviving a dud batch of eggs when i have come across one. That sucks maybe you can get a refund?
I found "pond salt" to work best for me.
Do same experiment on microworms and other critters used as fry food.
Good idea
What water did you use
Just tap water
At what point would you say it makes sense to start hatching brine shrimp? I only have two tanks, is it worth the effort to make a DIY brine shrimp hatchery? Can you make really small batches?
You can definitely make small batches but for 2 tanks it really is a lot of effort. I probably wouldnt bother in that case id just buy frozen bbs
@@BlakesAquatics Thanks! I figured as much, it seems like a little brine shrimp goes a long way and I wouldn't know what to do with all the excess
from what i've heard, the less air (you only need enough to move the water, not enough to put oxygen in the air, too much just beats the lil critters against each other until they break apart into pieces) The only benefit of the light is that it helps to grow algae, and they eat the algae... it isn't even very efficient at that... if you had a bit of water out in the sunlight growing algae and scooped up some of the green water and feed it to the brine shrimp whenever it doesn't seem to have any green left and all goes back brown.. then you'll be fine. fish like eating live food, your ziss has brine shrimp soup, .. you basically wind up with much more waste. if you were to grow out those brine shrimp you would really see the difference.. and that is where you will really learn more about how well your system is working or not, in my honest opinion. you feed your babies micro worms.. do you chop them up before you do? (of course not) why chop up the brine shrimp? it's that simple to me.
From the Caribbean 👍
What type of salt do you use?
I used salt from reef revolution
Hi Blake, what is the brand name and size of the heater(s) you were able fit in each ziss hatchery? My spare heaters are either too long or their diameter is to large to fit throught the hole in the lid.
100w heaters. One was orca brand, one was anko (kmart) and the other aqua zonic i believe
Thanks Blake
It's worth the baking soda if your are on well water. My ph is like 5 or 6 out the faucet
Blake you rock btw but what about chlorine. People sweat the chlorine helps them escape the shell.
It does, the trouble is most cities treat their water with chloramine which doesnt evaporate so i always just recommend dechlorinating 👍
Yes but if your house is on rainwater tanks your ph will be too low. Ph8 is best for brine shrimp. I found a pinch of Seachem alkaline buffer does the job great.
Yeah true things can vary a lot depending on your base water
I always pre soak my eggs , so as a batch is hatching I have one soaking and when the first batch is ready the next eggs are ready and the eggs are pre softened . I have huge hatch rates that way
Love this idea
Do you soak them in freshwater? At what temp?
I've heard of this as well, how long do you soak for before kicking off the aeration & salt?
1st time hearing about pre soaking eggs. Thank you all for the tip.
Jumping between spoons and cups was super confusing.
Yeah sorry about that. Its pretty hard to keep track when filming over multiple days and weeks
Where does one find Tiny Brine shrimp eggs these days in Australia??
Blackwater aquariums online
@@BlakesAquaticsshould have asked Mats at Blackwater for advice on this one 😆 he did all the hard work experimenting already. Has the best hatch rate & salt ratio etc for eggs from different regions. It depends on origin of eggs with salt ratio, baking soda, temps etc👍 love his eggs😊
@@suzannec7783 even so never hurts to run it yourself than go in blindly following advice
Hi what's up bro, I just go to the beach and get water from the beach . With water from the beach u can put any amount of eggs. Never fails me .
Good thinking i could do that
I don’t really think the baking soda test was conclusive it’s based off your water PH so we need that info then we would need the PH of each of the test hatcheries. If your water PH is under 7 you’ll def need to add baking soda but if you’re over 7PH you should be fine without baking soda unless the bbs brand your eggs are from suggest a higher PH level like 8PH for the best hatch rate. Also as far as air the UFO doesn’t need an air system because it’s not as deep.
Fair call, for the record my tap water is 6.8ph 0 kh 0 gh
👍🏻 For the misses
I wish people would weigh their salt and not measure it. Salt grind size can impact volume drastically. I have measured 2 brands of salt and one had about 25 grams difference in a cup volume.
My tap water comes out at 7.1-7.5 so baking soda does make a fair difference. With just salt and water that had been conditioned I had a success rate of about 50-60% hatch rate. When I left the chlorine in the water and added a pinch of baking soda I was seeing a considerably higher hatch rate. I heard that the chlorine being acid helps break down the shell of the brine shrimp and makes it easier to hatch. It also gasses off after about 8-10 hours in an air powered hatchery. So before the shrimp would be exposed.
Light only impacts them if the uv or ir output in the light is high. If you have terrestrial plant grow lights above your tank and run your hatchery next to it you won't see a good success rate
What happens if you let BBS grow to adulthood ?
They grow to adult brine shrimp and reproduce
The pipette method for measuring hatch rate is not relevant for the UFO hatchery.
The Ziss/UFO hatcheries harvest differently. The UFO uses a sieve, recollecting more and more brine throughout a 12-24 hour time window (when the artemia still have optimal nutritional values as fish food). I get gobs and gobs and GOBS of BBS. Too much in fact.
For someone with up to 5 nano tanks (10gal/38L or less), a single UFO hatchery can easily over-feed every tank in a single hatch.
No one with 5 or less nano tanks should be buying a Ziss.
I also get way more hatches with my UFO hatchery than you. Make sure you have the air pocket open on the edge of the lid.
You are not using the UFO corectly, eggs should be only in the outer ring, you had them all around. I am using this method twice every week and I get first 3 days a decent yeald for my 3 aquariums, I have left the UFO for week and it was giving small about of yeald even on the day seven. I have never used these special hatcheries, I do not like sound of bublers.
I would recommend to clean them with hydrogen peroxide, I have success to mix the salt in warm water around 40°C and when I put the eggs in the UFO the temperature is around 30°C that helps with hatching. I do 18-20grams of salt to 700ml of wather for the UFO and it works well.
I did put the eggs in the outside originally
I also use the UFO hatchery and found that the ambient temperature is its only issue for what creates more yield. So if nighttime ambient temp drops, it is delayed and also not give as much. That is the only issue I found. Otherwise it is easier to not have any egg shells with this method.
As you can see the results in video, the hatchery tube showed dead stuff on bottom and foggy waters, so he should have used a net to rinse, and then put in tube to compare. But it does show less with UFO. I never saw it so low. On mine the accumulate into a very dense area of hatch in middle. Using a added light is also an issue because it will light up the whole area inside, instead of letting the critters swim to ambient light in center . Should also try more testing for finding optional results with UFO, because the video did find optimal results for hatcherys.
No matter this was a very informative video.
@@Maxx134a I do not have issue with ambient temperature since I keep the room at 24°C. I use USB light on it on the end I use turkey baster or what you call it in English to scope last bits of live artemia out. Unfortunatelly I am not able to get all the alive out of the hatchery since and I do not want to use the eggs separator so they end up in drain.
Baking soda and baking powder aren't the same bud. Confusing the two could kill your aquatics.
@@STEVE_C_1369 apologies
@@BlakesAquatics No apology necessary bud. Hell...If I could go just one day without a slip of the tongue,Id be amazed. It happens,LOL.
Man how can you run them at 22c it's 34c in my room 😂.I also add a pH buffer to my water.Can you make a video of growing them out.Thats what I'm struggling with.And I think my cichlids would struggle with brineshrimp the size of Harry lol.
Hahaha yeah good idea i will grow some out. 34c is cooking!
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"My hatched brine shrimp egg"🥹❤
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