decapsulated brine shrimp eggs
 

I want to feed my gorgonians baby brine shrimp without needing to hatch them. This means either frozen baby shrimp or decapsulated eggs. I will probably get the decapsulated eggs. Out of curiosity though, they called them "Non-Hatching". Does this mean that they won't hatch at all? That's odd. I thought they would.

http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/dec...ne-shrimp.html

http://www.saltlakeshoreline.com/pro...products_id=46

Next, I'm looking for a place to get these in Canada. Any suggestions? I could get them from brineshrimpdirect but I don't want to pay UPS a $20 brokerage fees to get a $12 item. The 2nd place seems to only ship within the US. I will search some more.

Sam, Steve ordered stuff from brineshrimpdirect without using UPS. The sent it postal, I believe.

Yeah.......... ask if they send USPS.......... brokerage fee is $5 cdn :)

Cheers,
Vic [veng68]

nope no brokerage with USPS at all. you still pay there shipping and handling price though (I think they charge for bundeling it up) but e-mail them first and state you do not want UPS and will they ship your order USPS. when they reply yes ask them if there is any special instructions you should put on your order to let them know how you wand it shipped.

Steve

brine eggs
 

Decapped Brine eggs are for feeding purposes only and not hatching. For some reason the cyst is not going to hatch after they decap them. They are a good food source and there is no risk of introducing hydroids in the your tank.
Aaron

You can decap the brine shrimp eggs on your own.

All you need to do is put them in bleach for about 45 minutes. Hatch out is 8 hours instead of 24.

See Clownfishs by Wilkerson for a full description of the process.


Wendell

I don't know why the Brine shrimp Cysts from BSD won't hatch out but they say they wont so I wouldn't try. I'd stick with hatching out BBS on my own, it's easy and you can put some green water or nanochloropsis paste from Wendel and or some Selco to help make them good and rich. The reason I'd stick with live bbs is that you'll find that other stuff in the tank will eat it better than a bunch of dust (decaped cysts) I'd rather use golden pearls if it were me.

Doug

Hi Steve. Yes, Canada Post does charge a $5 brokerage fee but I think only if the item is over a certain amount of money and they need to collect taxes for the gov't. That's when they charge the $5 fee.

Here's what I found:

http://www.canadapost.ca/personal/to...b06-e.asp#c006

"Gifts from friends and relatives, valued at $60CDN or less, are duty and tax exempt. Goods imported into Canada, valued at $20CDN or more, are subject to all duties and taxes."

"Canada Post has taken over many of the material-handling and revenue-collection functions previously performed by Canada Customs. A handling fee of $5CDN per dutiable or taxable mail item is applied. "

So looks like no fee for me for under $20. Great.

I wanted to go with decap eggs because I was hoping that eatened eggs would hatch and not pollute the water. The price of decap eggs was the same as the non-decap eggs so it seemed to make sense to not decap my own.

Sam if you decap them yourself you can hatch them out like Wendel said in about 8 hours. So you could set up some bbs in the morning and feed them to your tank in the evening. As long as you've got some phytoplankton in the water the bbs will survive.

Doug

Sadly, my order with Brineshrimp Direct is still at the UPS depot. I refused to accept it as they wanted a $16 agricultural fee because it is fish food. I never heard of that before.

Originally, BSD agreed to ship the order to me using Postal Service which I paid for. But they made a mistake and sent it using UPS anyways. So this is not looking good.

Sam that's wild, I guess things have changed again. I used to ship up live shrimp and I DIDN'T get charged any fish/wildlife/agricultural fee's because the shrimp WERE fish food. Live but they were to be fed to fish.

That's sad, I'd contact BSD and let them know, I'm willing to bet they'll set it right.

Doug

I have two thoughts, one of a little surprise, but bsd doesnt ship alot to canada.

Ag fee is for inspection, no big surpirse, just caught in the tape, it happens.

Pay the fee, lesson learned.


Wendell

ps ask for a credit on you next order.

Wendell, yes I did learn the lesson of not using UPS long ago. I requested and they confirmed that they will ship to me by postal service and they gave me a quote for postal service which we then both agree on. So, somewhere along the way, their shipping dept ended up shipping the order to me using UPS. We're working something out now.

BSD told me they ship a LOT to Canada. They got me a frozen order here in perfect condition in mid July :eek: using DSL.

BSD ships a lot to canada, and ag fee is for comercial hatcheries buying food from the US not for a individual. UPS is going for a money grab. best thing to do is refuse the shipment like you did, then call BSD and explain that USP adds on hidden charges and you refuse to deal with them and when they get the product back could they ship it USPS as was agreed. for whats it is worth they charge the same amount for shipping USP or USPS Sam so you won't save on shipping by using USPS only the "extra" charges.

Steve

I'm sure Steve knows best.


Wendell

another UPS ripoff

I know I am a bit late on this post but never late then never. I guess I will ask my first question of Samw. Is there a particular reason you are looking at feeding Brine Shrimp over another type of food like Rotifers?

If you do want to use brine shrimp then you would be looking at hatching them yourself to feed. You can go to the USA to order them but you can also get them from Canadian suppliers such as Mops (http://www.Mops.ca) and I am sure many others I mention them only because I have delt with them in the past and they are local to me.

As far a the capsulation process you may want to take a look at http://www.seahorse.org/library/arti...miaGuide.shtml

Yes, the reason I wanted to use decap eggs was so that I don't need to culture live food. Simply feed the decap eggs and let the uneaten eggs hatch instead of rotting. That was the hope.

Although we have never truly used the Decapsulated aggs as a food source I can only suggest that you try and see what happens.

As far as letting the uneaten eggs hatch.. no likly going to happen. If you decapsulated them yourself there is a much better chance they would hatch but in my opinion you would be better off with a live culture. I have instructions on my web site for how to culture Phytoplankton and if you can do that Rotifers are easy.

You will probably find that the process of decapsulation takes about as long as the time put in to culture some live food.

There is no space in my tiny condo to culture live foods and keep it out of sight from guests.

Also, I use BBS because I can make some today and not tomorrow. And then start up another batch on the weekend. If I had room to culture rotifers, I still wouldn't because I need to constantly monitor them. Unless I can leave them alone for 3 or 4 days at a time, it just won't work.

Hey Wendell, do you neutralize the bleach?

Christy :)

Yup. Just got their bill today for $24.64 even though I never accepted the package. :evil: I guess I will have to call them and sort this mess out now.

Here's a good one. After I refused to accept the shipment, they decided to bill me $55.91 to return it to sender.

hahahahhaa, thats beautiful!

No, its not over. They've "waived" my $55.91 return fee but now they've hired Dunsgram collection services to collect the original $24.64.

All this because I refused to accept a package from UPS. I think they are intentionally trying to make my life difficult. All I did wrong was asked Brine Shrimp Direct to mail me an order using Postal Service. Now UPS wants me to pay for not accepting their services. Hm, I wonder if I can counter sue them for wasting my time?

Oh, and there's no 1-800 number to call either. I have to call them direct long distance to resolve this.

wow, thats dumb

that is so weird, I never had a problem when i refused the original shipment from them.

Steve