Hi, so i have a thread with my tank and how its doing but it needs updating, i'll get round to that later ,

After searching a lot of forums about breeding brine shrimp it seems there is little info, and even littler info on growing them out, so i decided to take what info i could and put it into one project.

I have basically built a brine shrimp hatchery that is 5 Litres in size, i wanted a 15L tank but the LFS ran out so i grabbed a £6 plastic tank, some airline tubing and a tube attachment and got on with it.

I placed a pump into the sump of my tank and attached to it a length of tubing, this would be later used for clean water flow into the hatchery,
and in the side i used a sharp knife to bore a hole just big enough for the tube attachment and siliconed it in place.


Here you can see it happily sitting on my tank, not very eye catching but this is a prototype .


here you can see the outlet tube, it looks like i need at least one more outlet to cope with the speed of the water being pumped in,


and here you can see my ingenious use of a syringe that i punctured as i didnt have a small enough airstone,


and this is a picture of what you'll be needing,


so what you'll need in a list:
+at least a 5 Litre tank,
+some airline/siphoning tube,
+some nylon tights,
+some tube attachments,
+a syringe/airstone and air pump,
+a slow pump for the water,
+heavy duty tape/gaffa tape,
+silicon sealant,
+a sharp knife,
+common sense.

STEP ONE:
get your tank, and about an inch from the top, bore a hole with the knife, make sure to keep checking how wide it is compared to the tubing attachment so its a nice tight fit, do this again next to it so we have two outlets . Cover the back and the sides with tape so there is less light going into the tank.
Insert the attachments, secure a small square of nylon tights/mesh to the part of the attachments inside the tank, use silicon sealant to make them water tight, plug your tubing in, then make a hole in the top of the tank for the water inlet tube to go.
Place a pump with a good length of tubing into your tank/sump with the tubing running out of the tank, DONT PLUG IT IN YET!
Run the tubing into the hatchery tank, run the outlet pipes into your tank/sump, put a thermometer into the tank.
Put an airstone or home made airstone into the tank.
Place the hatchery in its final place where you want it to be.

STEP TWO:
Turn on the water pump to fill the hatchery tank and turn it off once its full, turn on your air pump.

The tank is now ready for you to put in your BS Eggs.

STEP THREE:
I use de-shelled brineshrimp eggs, i use bottled eggs produced by NTLabs,
1 drop usually has 1000-1500 eggs, so i put in 3 drops.

Allow the tank to be exposed to light for at least 12 hours, after 48 hours you should have Nauplii hatched.
It is crucial that they are fed 12-24 hours after hatching as they would have developed a mouth and anus and will no longer be feeding off of their embryo sacks.
i feed with Tropic Marin Pro-Coral Phyton (a plankton substitute for soft corals, bivalves and other micro filter feeders-i am almost certain this is similar to the food given to sea monkeys, same colour and smell)

you will want to put in enough food to cloud the water, and once the water becomes clear, they would have eaten the food, so put in some more.

MAINTENANCE:
I turn on the water pump for 5 minutes every day to flush out the old water, this also puts the heated water from your tank into the hatchery.
your main tank will be able to handle the bio load from the hatchery water with out a problem, be sure to keep up with your weekly/bi-weekly main tank partial water changes, maybe change an extra 10% though???

a slime will build up on the walls of the tank but this is beneficial algae that the BS will feed off of.

use a pipette or syringe to carefully suck up any food debris from the corners and remove.

you may need to brush the outlet mesh to remove any build up that may slow water flow.

MORE INFO:
once they have molted to their fuller form, they will produce every 4 days so maintaining a healthy tank will keep a consistent flow of brine shrimp for your main tank. Research into more beneficial foods yourself or buy NTLabs Brine Shrimp Food from their online store.

You can also use the water pump to speed up water changes if you take the tubing from the hatchery and run it to a container to chuck it .

i hope this has been helpful to some of you,
i intend to better this project so any helpful ideas are welcome .
cheers,

NewReefGuy