Wow, BCOG, thank you very much for the detailed information :smile: :smile: :smile:

Dwarf horses, H. zostrae, would only eat newly hatched bs, so I'd only have to have one hatching cone going, don't you think?

Could I use water from one of my tanks, say from the 42 gal, instead of using new water each day? Then I could sort of do a mini water change and replenish the 42 a little bit every day.

Thanks again for taking the time to write those extensive instructions. Very much appreciated. DH also understood them, which is even better, cuz he's the main DIY-er here :smile:

I really don't think using tank water would be ideal... why?? I'm not sure... If you keep the two cones going you can feed a portion of newly hatched shrimp and feed a portion of the instar II (fancy talk for moulted bbs)...

No problems on the description of how to do it, I wish I could have taken a pic so you could see what my mess looks like. Glad you understood it though..... One day I will try to tell you how to decapsulate brine shrimp....

OH BTW... get good brine shrimp eggs if you are going to get the dwarf horses... I strongly recommend Brine Shrimp Direct.. the prices may seem a bit high but you really get an excellent quality egg. I've used the OSI brand at $60/4 oz and had less than 50% hatch rate, and I've used Brineshrimp Directs at $55US for 12oz and I get nearly 90% hatch rate so I use half the eggs to get as many brine shrimp (not that I've actually counted them)... The good stuff is a heck of a deal in the long run.

Doug.

From http://www.seahorse.org/library/arti...Keeping.shtml:

"Please see my instructions on brine decapsulation. Basically you soak brine cysts in aerating (using an air pump and allow to aerate during the whole process) tap water for an hour or so. Add some bleach about 1/3 of the amount of water they have soaked in and in about 7 minutes when they are a yellowish orange you rinse until the bleach odor is absent. Use of dechlor or Sodium Thiosulfate if you have may be used to speed up the rinsing process. After completion you may hatch the eggs right away in whole or in part. Leftover eggs may be stored in the refrigerator for about a week in a small amount of salt water. Try using your water change water to hatch brine. "

Yeah, I'd love to see a photo of your mess. I'm trying to figure out how to do this with as little mess as possible, being the anal clean freak that I am :rolleyes:

The author of the article does suggest using tank water to hatch them, as you can see.

Is the above decapsulating method similar to yours? So what happens during the rinsing process? Sounds like the eggs are encapsulated with a shell that comes off due to the bleaching and rinsing?

Geez, this sounds like so much work and is quite expensive, too :eek:

More thinking must be done .... :confused:

Yep thats the way I de capsulate them... it isn't all that difficult or expensive, decapsulation is an excellent thing for fish that don't need the feeding stimulus of live prey. Decapsulated brine shrimp are much more nutritious but they are not hatched so they don't swim around.

I know what you mean about being anal, frankly I want to get organized... its just hard to do with so much crap around....

The rinsing process is just to stop the bleach from dissolving the egg and to rinse it off so you aren't adding it to your system. Sodium Thiosulphate is just declorinator. You get a fair amount of foaming when you decapsulate, sometimes the jar you are using gets hot as well. If I buy my eggs from Brine shrimp direct I don't bother decapsulating them but if I am using OSI I decapsulate them before hatching them, you get a much higher hatch rate.

I meant that buying the eggs was expensive. Heck, even buying the horses will be a killer, too. But the whole brine shrimp decapsulating, hatching, then enriching procedure seems like a LOT of freakin' work :exclaim: :exclaim:

Here's what Brine Shrimp Direct has to say about the procedure:

http://www.sfbb.com/technical_info/G...rineshrimp.htm

They suggest a variety of feeding methods, which seem much more complex than just adding Selcon and Zoe to the second cone of water. But if I only want baby, baby brine shrimp, maybe that's all I'll need to do.

ROTFLMAO !!

We moved twice over the past 8 months, so I know crap from crap laying around :eek: Before the first move, we got into the "crap be gone" mode of packing and got rid of all kinds of stuff. After the second move just six weeks ago to our brand new condo, we did another "crap be gone" stint, this time unpacking. Geez, maybe you should just move :biggrin:

Planning on moving hopefully in the fall, to our own house, YEAH no more being the tenant.

Moving also means buying a larger tank so I can move everything out of my 90 with out much trauma... Hmm.. 90 would make a real nice Seahorse tank..... Hmmmm...

:eek: A house of your own sounds like the perfect set up for accumulating a BIG load of crap :eek: :lol:

I'm starting to believe there are two types of crap, useful stuff you may use in the next 10 years if everything changes... and stuff you can't do with out just incase something else changes.....

Not to long ago I took a ton of stuff the the LFS and got a credit for most of it... stuff I hadn't used in a while, now I'm going back and replacing it all... so in my frame of mind, why through stuff out, I will eventually find a use for it.

Geez, you gotta post some photos :exclaim: