Brine Shrimp Hatchery Filter
Contents:
- [F][M] Nifty brine shrimp sifter
by msjle-at-uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Joi L. Ellis) (22 Mar 1993)
by msjle-at-uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Joi L. Ellis)
Date: 22 Mar 1993
I hatch brine shrimp to feed to my guppies, and I've been dissatisfied
with the performance of those made-to-order brine shrimp nets I picked
up in the stores. More than half the shrimp always seemed to wash right
through the darn fabric, no matter how gently I tried to rinse the
things.
I tried using paper coffee filters but they were awkward and very slow
to drain. I finally tried the little permanent coffee filter out of my
one-cup coffee maker, and it worked perfectly!
I've since picked up a standard size model at the grocery store for
around $3. I hang it inside a 1quart funnel from WalMart (blue, about
50 cents.) The whole thing is stuck into the neck of a large apple
cider jug, and I use airline tubing to siphon shrimp water out of the
hatching tank into the filter. It's wonderful. The filter keeps up
with the water flow from the tank quite nicely, and I've never seen any
shrimp that managed to get through the filter into the jug. I use
Handi-Tak stuff to hold the funnel on the neck of the jug so it doesn't
tip over and spill.
Once the water mostly drains into the jug, I take the coffee filter into the
kitchen and just pour regular de-chlorinated water through it to rinse
the shrimp. At that point I usually take an eyedropper and suck the
now-densely packed shrimp into more freshwater for the trip to work
where the hungry babies are. The salt water in the jug gets poured back
into the hatching tank and recycled. From time to time I'll rinse all
the shells and junk out of the tank before putting the filter salt water
back in.
I also started using a disk-shaped small sponge filter in the hatching
tank. It really helps separate the shrimp from the shells... the shells
just get sucked into the filter and the shrimp swim away freely. I
haven't had nearly the problems with sucking up junk with the siphon
since I put the sponge filter in.
--
Joi Ellis msjle-at-uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
Student Residential Programs Western Illinois University
The Krib
Plumbing and Filtration
The Krib