Rinsing BBS

[Joshua Morgan]

Hello all! I am running into some problems with my brine shrimp…up until yesterday, I was using a baking soda/water mix to hatch the BBS; however, I discovered that this was raising the carbonate hardness of the tank – a completely unacceptable situation for paros. Today I am switching to a mixture of water, sodium chloride, and epsom salts (magnesium sulfate); however, while the carbonate hardness of this mixture is reasonable, the general hardness is sky high, and I am worried it is going to steadily increase the tank’s general hardness instead. Any advice on how to rinse BBS to remove as much of these contaminants as possible? Thankx in advance!

[Rafael Eggli]

Hey, personally I usually rinse them in a very fine sieve… there are plenty of such products around. However, the mesh width must be really small. I am not sure what with my sieve has but you will find the information in the internet or on the sieves. It must be really small so that the very youngest hatchlings do not get washed out. I rinse them with normal tap water…

[Richard VanHyfte]

I made up a sieve with 155 micron opening. I use about 5 cm length of a large diameter PVC pipe to which I fasten the cloth to the bottom with PVC cement. It must be cured and rinsed but I do use it quite often to rinse the BBS for my Paros. Still, the hardness does build up. I keep some RO water in a bucket with a couple of catappa leaves for water changes as this starts to build up. I also do use Epsom salts and a small amount of sodium carbonate in with the sodium chloride in the hatch water.

[Stefanie Rick]

I use this incubator set. (There’s an English instruction manual pdf).The small sieve is lifted containing the artemia naupliae, and can so be rinsed. Then I empty it into a small bowl with the right water and pour this into my paro tanks.

[Rafael Eggli]

Hi Stefanie, i use the same one and it works really well. Now after some years i had to buy a new sieve because mine wont let the wasser through anymore…

[Stefanie Rick]

[quote=”RafEg” post=5841]Hi Stefanie, i use the same one and it works really well. Now after some years i had to buy a new sieve because mine wont let the wasser through anymore…[/quote]

Hi, Rafael,
yes, I also know this problem. You can solve it for a while by cleaning the sieves in water adding a denture cleanser tab. It works very well. So you have to buy new sieves only after a rather long time – and I am glad that it is indeed possible to buy replacements!

[Arno Beißner]

place the sieve in a tank whith shrimps. The next day is the sieve like new. 🙂

[Dorothee Jöllenbeck-Pfeffel]

@ Arno: good idea! 😛
@ AJ: if you click on the register card “search” above and search for “Atemia methods ” you will find an older thread concerning that subject.
I can add here: since about a year I use one JBL cone for breeding BBS. I have two of them. Every second day I make a new set. One cone I feed to all my fish in two days. I put half of the harvest in the breeding mineral sea-salt water (for sea water tanks) in the fridge.

When I open the cone, first I fill a small cup (about 40ml) with the first output, that are mostly unbread cysts..

I rinse them under tap water with a fine sieve about 155 micron openings as Dick says (at the moment I do no more sieve with three ones …)

[Gonin herve]

When my sieves are plugged off I use white vinegar for 1 minute then rince it in tap water then it is brand new again

[Author]

Posts