So Many Questions

hi everyone, i ended up taking halszkas eggs off her and now i have a few questions about raising them.
1. Once the eggs hatch is it nessecary to keep the air stone in or can i take it out?
2. On other posts people said they spent heaps of money, how much are we talking here hundreds?
3. How hard is it to keep the brineshrimp hatching everyday because from what ive heard it seems hard and now im worried that my brineshrimp wont hatch and my baby axies will starve. to keep them hatching should i have two hatcheries going at once, one with a heater and one not?
4. How long will it take for the babies to grow out of live food?

Boy are you in for a learning experience.

Once they hatch, you can remove the airstone but do daily full water changes for the entire time you have them. This is important.

How many eggs in total do you have? Not all will develop. Some will get fungus. There will be some that you will need to help hatch when the time is ready. So you may have heaps now but it will reduce.

Money - food, storage, water conditioner. Initial outlay I had about 15 50L storage crates at around $7 each. I hope you're strong cause I used to have to lug these babies out the door to tip all the water out when changing it. Food of course is an ongoing expense. I raised mine entirely on live food (silly me) so that was probably more expensive than frozen.

Brine shrimp hatch around 24 hours but you will be going through that every day easily. I think heat is the key - or it was in my case.

Good Luck.

I forgot to mention time - it used to take me about 3 hrs per day to change and feed.

(Message edited by waltona on July 13, 2005)

but were do you get the crates from?

15 crates!
okay, well in my house i already have 10 of those so they should be okay to use because they've only had books in them. i dont think i have nearly as many eggs as you did, about 200 or less so maybe i will be able to make do with the crates i have. it wont be that hard to clean them out cause all of my crates have wheels so i can just wheel them out. plus my family will help me to get all the cleaning done so hopefully it wont take as much time. now the only thing im worried about is having to hatch the brineshrimp. they eggs are so cute some of them are starting to change from little black balls to little c shapes. i cant take photos cause my camera is old and wont focus.

Vanessa - you have a little time to experiment with brine shrimp hatching so you have it mastered before the axolotls hatch.

I would suggest trying your hand at it now instead of waiting.

The most important part of brine shrimp production is the quality of the eggs you buy. Old and low hatch rate eggs will not do well for you.

Fresh good quality eggs is what you want to locate, they usually charge more for the higher quality eggs but they are well worth it.

Don't forget to buy a good brine shrimp net too. It comes in handy for of course straining brine shrimp but also for catching tiny axolotls as brine shrimp nets are usually made from a soft cloth.

vebas aquarium has brineshrimp eggs for around $4.50, would you say judging by the price that they would be good or okay quality. i already have a brineshrimp net as we use it for catching our siamese fighting fish. i am going to vebas on saturday to get everything i need, that should give me about a week to experiment. what do i do with the brinshrimp that have hatched when i dont have any babies to feed?

Vanessa - I buy them online from www.brineshrimpdirect.com and they grade the eggs and charge more for the high hatch rate eggs. I have never purchased eggs from the pet shops so I don't know how they price small quantities.

But... try some and see. Make note any kind of expiration date on the package.

Your fighting fish would enjoy freshly hatched brineshrimp. You may have to toss out the rest of the brineshrimp you hatch in test mode. I have tried keeping them alive without much luck after 4 or 5 days or so.

I'm unsure how important it is when doing daily water changes, but most plastic tubs leach chemicals into the water. I invested in food grade plastic tubs for my babies, but no-one seems to have had a problem with normal tubs so far. Just me being paranoid.
I didn't use a heater with my brine shrimps, and I think it was my downfall. You will probably need 2 or 3 hatcheries going at once. See how many days it takes for one batch of brine shrimp to hatch, then makes sure you have enough going for daily or twice daily feedings.

what kind of heater do u need for brineshrimp?. ive got new eggs to and im going to try brine shrimp for the first time. hopefully it all works out. i dont have a heater though i read that they dont need one but everyone on here says u do.. :s lol so confusing. also how much and how quickly do they foul the water?. it would be good to have that daphnia stuff but im not sure if u can buy it in australia. if anyone knows can u tell me. i went down to the pet shop to see if they had any brineshrimp (they didnt ) but they said that misquito lavae is good. just scoop some out of an pond or container that has been sitting out side for a while. i hate misquitos.. lol.

Shane, the pet shop you went to - was it a specialist aquarium place? If not, try and find one because they usually have more range than the dog+cat stores. I have got a basic AquaOne heater for an 55L tank heating capacity - was cheap and worked fine.

I have hatched brine shrimp with and without heaters - the heater improved the hatch rate immensely.

They are ok for juvenile axolotls but for babies they are a bit too big.
Daphnia probably can be bought in some places in Australia but I would say it is more uncommon then brine shrimp.
I have lots of wiled daphnia that I am trying to quarantine for a backup food supply if my axies decide to have eggs.

I meant mosquito larvae when I said they are ok for juveniles but Anne-Marie beat me and now my post doesn’t make sense

Shane- I know Vebas (Western Australian Aquarium shop) sells live Daphnia, but i think they are adult ones and not newly hatched, but since you live in NSW i have no idea if they sell them over there.
i am going to have two brineshrimp hatcheries staggered a day apart with heaters. i'll only have to buy one heater though cause i already have one cheap heater at home.
some of my eggs have turned into tiny c shapes and i can see tiny gill buds if i look very closely, they also seem to change position every once and a while, all the rest of the eggs are still little black balls is it normal to have some growing alot faster than the others?

yeah ive noticed the eggs ive left in the main tank have developed faster than the ones ive seperated. i guess its becuase it is a little warmer in the main tank than the one i have half the eggs in. im glad i didnt get rid of them all at once. they have turned into little c's too but not quite as developed as yours venessa. im getting excited. hopefully the brine shrimp will come soon and i can experiment in hatching a few before i need them. with the heaters, i dont know anything about them. do they just fit inside the containers the brineshrimp are hatching in?. and i dont really understand the pics on that link about the micro foods. how has everyone else made their hatcheries? also. lol more questions! do the baby axolotls (newly hatched what do you call them??) yeh when they hatch, do you need to keep the air stone in the tank with them. i only have one double air pump, so if i want to have two brineshrimp hatcheries, and the tubs with the newly hatched axoltols will i need to buy another air pump.

No I didn't have any airlines going in to my hatchlings. Brine shrimp hatcheries - does this look like a black box with a hole in the lid and a plastic catchy thing that goes in the top - I hate those, they never work for me. I ended up using a plastic bottle. They are good when you are ready to feed the baby brinies - pour the solution into the box, fit the catchy thing with water on top and hey presto.