Decapsulating Brine Shrimp Eggs is kinda tedious the first time around but gets easier.
Materials:
Bleach - Get the plain kind, no chemicals added. I use the cheap kinda you find at Dollar General.
White Vinegar - plain kind again.
Dechlorinating Drops - Any kind seems to work.
Brine Shrimp Nets - I use two , but one works.
Water - I use plain old tap water, but I use RO/DI water for the last rinse, I will explain a bit later.
Airline with a throttle - I use the cheap plastic valves and just a length of airline.
Air Pump - Any kind will work. Needs to be powerful enough to stir up the water.
Jar or Cup
Brine shrimp eggs - I bought a pound of them off ebay for like 40 bucks and lasts me a year or so. But you can buy small containers from most pet stores and it costs like 1.99 for a few ounces. Good to start off small too.
How to do it:
Section 1: Hydrating the cysts
1. First get a jar, i use a 16 ounce mason jar, and put about 2 tablespoons of brine shrimp cysts with about half a cup of water. The cysts will float on top of the water. Put in the airline, and throttle the valve kinda low. You want the water to be stirred up but not violently, not yet.
2. This is the most time consuming part, it will take about 45 minutes to an hour to hydrate the eggs. it will be apparent when about half of them are sinking down to the bottom, and most are not floating any more. Check on them every 15 minutes or so and use a dropper or a spoon to scrap the eggs off of the sides of the container.
Section 2: Bleaching the cysts
1. By now most if not all of the cysts are hydrated. Add about 1/4 cup of bleach to the cup/jar.
2. Open the air throttle all of the way, so that the water is stirred somewhat violently.
3. In about 5-10 minutes, your eggs should go from brown to white, then in another 5-10 minutes they will turn orange. Sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more.
Section 3: Rinsing the Decapsulated Eggs
1. After about 75 percent of the eggs are orange, turn off the air.
2. Get your brine shrimp net and pour the eggs into the net. Use from the tap if you want to get all of the eggs out of the jar.
3. Pour about a quarter cup of the vinegar on the eggs. This will stop the bleaching action.
4. Run the eggs under the running tap. I prefer two nets because sometimes the density doesnt always allow to much water to flow through, so i split them up.
5. Run them under water till the bleach smell is gone. I personally soak them for a min in a clean jar, inside the net, with water and add a couple drops of dechlor. I then rinse them with RO/DI water to try to get the tap water impurities out of them.
6. After I rinse them, i put them in a small tupperware container, with a very light layer of RO/Di water on top of them. They can be kept in the fridge like this for probably 6 weeks or so. I have kept them for twice that long but that is not recommended.
Section 4: Usage
I use about a 1/10 of a teaspoon in my
brine shrimp hatchery. (Two litre bottle inverted type.), it takes about 12 hours to get a hatch (as oppose to the 2 days it did without decapsulating them), and no shells to choke seahorses.
I use dts phytoplankton to help enrich the ones I don't use within the first 24-48 hours, and beyond that I put them in a 5 gal bucket with a airstone to grow them out for adult fish and adult seahorses.
I also feed the decapsulated eggs to my corals.
Ray
