Incubate || Sanitation || Harvest || Feeding || Storage || BBS Sieves

Welcome to our step by step guide to hatching Baby Brine Shrimp. This page will cover the task of harvesting Baby Brine Shrimp for feeding. Next we offer suggestions for feeding Angelfish fry and BBS storage. Followed by BBS sieves.

	Once you have prepared to incubate the brine shrimp cyst (eggs) your BBS hatchery. It will produce Baby Brine Shrimp in about 24 hours.
	After approximately  24 hours the water in the hatching container will turn a brownish orange color. This color change is your signal that the cyst have hatched and it is time to harvest the Baby Shrimp.
	Prepare to start harvesting the BBS  by turning off the aeration and removing the lid. Let the culture settle a few minutes. Notice the lighter colored culture pictured here. The hatched empty shells have floated to the surface, and unhatched cysts have sunk to the bottom. The newly hatched BBS are concentrated just above the unhatched cysts near the bottom.
	Newly hatched BBS are phototropic or attracted to light.  Shine a lamp toward the hatching container to concentrate the Baby Shrimp in the hatching container to a location where it is easy to siphon and remove them.
	Remove the BBS from the hatching container. Pictured here, a turkey baster is used to remove the BBS. Notice that the BBS are collected from the area near the light source. Larger quantities of BBS may be easier to remove with a siphon. Some hatching containers allow BBS to be removed from the bottom of the container. When harvesting BBS, void cyst or egg shells.
	After removing the BBS from the hatchery deposit them into a BBS Sieve.  They are used to  separate the BBS from the hatching media.
	Be sure to remove any cyst that  may have attached to any tools to prevent adding cysts to your tanks. If you use a turkey baster or siphon wipe away empty brine shrimp cyst with a paper towel. This will help to avoid the labor of removing unhatched cyst from your tanks later. Perform this task while the BBS Sieve is slowly straining the BBS.
	Tank water is often readily available and is an acceptable choice when feeding the fish in the same tank from which it is removed.  Fresh conditioned water is recommended for feeding more than one tank. Obtain water to rinse the BBS collected in the BBS sieve.
	Rinsing removes salty hatching media and some of the bacteria living in the hatching media. After allowing rinse water to partially drain from the BBS Sieve several times. Fill the sieve with rinse water again then quickly empty the collected and freshly rinsed BBS into a small container of water or remove them with a turkey baster. The BBS are now ready to be fed directly to fry.
	The freshly hatched and rinsed BBS may be released directly into your fry tank or deposited into a cup and transported to your fry tank or placed into cold storage for use later.
	If you are utilizing a sieve made from a paper coffee filter, fish net and specimen container allow most of your rinse water to drain away. Then simply remove the coffee filter containing the rinsed BBS, turn it inside out and release the BBS in a cup of tank or fresh conditioned water.
	Freshly hatched Baby Brine Shrimp are the preferred choice for feeding Angelfish fry. Once rinsed and harvested they may be fed immediately or placed in cold storage and used later.

We have created a gallery of images of Brine Shrimp hatcheries from pictures that have been submitted or collected by us from all over the internet. You will see many examples of BBS hatcheries including popular versions sold in local pet stores in actual use.  Click on the links below to see our introduction to Baby Brine Shrimp, view the AMH Gallery of BBS Hatcheries or continue on to the next section of the AMH BBS Hatching Guide.