Brine shrimp and ammonia spikes. What am I doing wrong?

[Stv]

Hey guys. Been harvesting baby brine for a while and all is very successful. I do about a gram a week in a one liter bottle with great success. My struggle is that I set up a 10 gallon breeder with just an air line and heater to try and raise them to adults. I use freshly mixed salt water that I would use for normal tank water changes and back the salinity down to 1.020 with RODI. I don’t over populate the tank and only add maybe 10% of the hatch to this tank and feed the rest immediately after hatch. The 10 gallon tank seems to do fine for a couple to few days and then I get an ammonia spike and they all die off. I’ve tried three different food sources for them on three different attempts and the outcome is the same. Ammo ia spike and dead tank. I’ve used in house bread Phyto plankton, R
I make my own Phyto plankton so I’ve tried that, RG complete and spirulina powder. I’m careful not to over feed and make the water too green, I feed daily in all three cases just so the water has a slight color change.

what am I doing wrong and why am I getting this ammonia spike and dead tank after just 2-3 days 3 times in a row?
Any advise would be much appropriated from peeps that have successfully raised bring to adults and have a proven success rate. Cheers and happy reefing.

 

[Jerrym21]

I basically do the same thing but in my 10 gal Brine shrimp grow out tank I use water change water from my display with RO to bring the salinity down a bit.

 

[vlangel]

Raising baby brine shrimp is challenging. I tried it for my seahorses and was not successful. Bacterial outbreaks often wiped mine out even though I cleaned them often. In the end I decided that the aggravation was not worth the effort.

 

[rmorris_14]

I'm getting ready to attempt this myself so I don't have much advice. I read something this morning about someone who only feed them every few days. Maybe not feeding everyday might help?

Curious... how did you decided on the 1.020 salinty? Ive seen a suggestion of 35 to 40 PPT.

 

[Garf]

I never had a problem growing them in new salt water with spiralling. Tried a few times in tank water, crashed.

 

[Jerrym21]

I do a 50% water change once a week and siphon the gunk off of the bottom. Add new hatched brine twice a week to keep the population up. When I feed the display, I use a regular net (not the fine brine shrimp net) so I only scoop out med and large ones and the babies stay in the grow out tank.
Every 8-10 weeks, I completely wash out the tank and start fresh.
I feed a few ounces of home cultured phyto every morning and a small bit of hard boiled egg yolk every other day.

 

[rmorris_14]

I do a 50% water change once a week and siphon the gunk off of the bottom. Add new hatched brine twice a week to keep the population up. When I feed the display, I use a regular net (not the fine brine shrimp net) so I only scoop out med and large ones and the babies stay in the grow out tank.
Every 8-10 weeks, I completely wash out the tank and start fresh.
I feed a few ounces of home cultured phyto every morning and a small bit of hard boiled egg yolk every other day.

What’s the salinity of the water you use for the grow out? And do they require light?

 

[Big Smelly fish]

The key is doing water changes like mentioned above . To me it’s a real pain.

 

[Jerrym21]

What’s the salinity of the water you use for the grow out? And do they require light?

I keep it around 1.020- .023. honestly, I don’t check it too often. They don’t seem to have any adverse effects in that range.
as for light, it’s just ambient room lighting

 

[Jerrym21]

The key is doing water changes like mentioned above . To me it’s a real pain.

It definitely is. The bottom gunk STINKS.

 

[rmorris_14]

Hey guys. Been harvesting baby brine for a while and all is very successful. I do about a gram a week in a one liter bottle with great success. My struggle is that I set up a 10 gallon breeder with just an air line and heater to try and raise them to adults. I use freshly mixed salt water that I would use for normal tank water changes and back the salinity down to 1.020 with RODI. I don’t over populate the tank and only add maybe 10% of the hatch to this tank and feed the rest immediately after hatch. The 10 gallon tank seems to do fine for a couple to few days and then I get an ammonia spike and they all die off. I’ve tried three different food sources for them on three different attempts and the outcome is the same. Ammo ia spike and dead tank. I’ve used in house bread Phyto plankton, R
I make my own Phyto plankton so I’ve tried that, RG complete and spirulina powder. I’m careful not to over feed and make the water too green, I feed daily in all three cases just so the water has a slight color change.

what am I doing wrong and why am I getting this ammonia spike and dead tank after just 2-3 days 3 times in a row?
Any advise would be much appropriated from peeps that have successfully raised bring to adults and have a proven success rate. Cheers and happy reefing.

I’ve been watching some YouTube videos on this, trying get some tips to help with my brine shrimp raising and one of them said it would be good to have a sponge filter to help with the water quality. Thought I’d throw that out there in case it is helpful to you.