It’s great to see so many people wanting to feed their pet fish live food due to excellent nutritional profiles of things like brine shrimp, daphnia, bloodworms, and mysis shrimp.
Due to the increased trend of people feeding their fish live foods, we have noticed more and more questions being asked each month about what live food they should use for their fish.
We already have articles going over our daphnia vs brine shrimp comparison and our mysis shrimp vs brine shrimp comparison.
After publishing those articles, we started to realize that people were really struggling on working out how to actually store their live foods prior to feeding them to their pet fish.
This resulted in more and more people switching back to feeding their fish frozen brine shrimp and although this is still a great option, we still prefer self hatched live brine shrimp.
Due to this, we decided that we wanted to publish our article going over how to store live brine shrimp in preparation for feeding them to your fish.
How To Hatch Live Brine Shrimp Correctly!
The first step is to fill a container that has a lid with brine shrimp eggs.
You can use any type of container you have available, but we recommend using something like a mason jar or Tupperware container.
After the container is filled with brine shrimp eggs, add enough fresh water to just cover the eggs.
It is important to not add too much freshwater as this will result in the brine shrimp eggs not hatching.
Once you have added the appropriate amount of freshwater, place the lid on top of the container and give it a good shake so that the eggs are evenly distributed within the container.
Place the container in an area where it will not be disturbed and where the temperature is warm.
You will want to keep the container in an area where the temperature is at least 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
If the temperature is lower than this, it will take longer for the brine shrimp eggs to hatch.
The optimum temperature for hatching brine shrimp eggs is between 80-82 degrees Fahrenheit.
You will also want to make sure that the container is not in direct sunlight as this can also impact the hatching process.
How Do I Store Live Brine Shrimp?
Once the brine shrimp eggs have hatched, you will want to remove the newly hatched brine shrimp from the container and place them in a separate container filled with fresh water.
You can use the same type of container that you used to hatch the brine shrimp eggs or you can use something different.
The most important thing is to make sure that the container has a lid so that the brine shrimp cannot escape.
After the brine shrimp have been moved to their new container, you will want to place them in an area where the temperature is cool.
The ideal temperature for storing live brine shrimp is between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit.
You will also want to make sure that the container is not in direct sunlight as this can cause the brine shrimp to die.
If you are not going to be using the live brine shrimp within 24 hours, we recommend placing them in the fridge.
Just make sure to remove them from the fridge a few hours before you plan on feeding them to your fish so that they have time to adjust to the new temperature.
How Long Can Brine Shrimp Live After Hatching When Stored Correctly?
If you store the live brine shrimp in an area where the temperature is cool and they are not in direct sunlight, they can live for up to 2 weeks.
We do not recommend keeping them alive any longer than this as they will start to die off after 2 weeks.
This is why it is so important that you do your best to try and only hatch the eggs that your fish will be able to eat within a 2 week period.
Using A Self Sustaining Brine Shrimp Colony For Storage!
Some people have build out heavily planted tanks where they are able to let an independent brine shrimp colony thrive in their main aquarium where the brine shrimp will end up reproducing at the same rate that their fish eats them.
This is a great method that you are able to use if you are an experienced fish keeper but it can be tricky to set this up correctly if you are new to storing live brine shrimp.
For anyone who is a beginner, we would always recommend that you use the container method explained above to store your brine shrimp.
Do You Need An Air Pump To Store Brine Shrimp?
You do not need an air pump to store brine shrimp but we recommend using one if you can.
The reason why we recommend using an air pump is because it will help to keep the water oxygenated which is important for the health of the brine shrimp.
If you cannot use an air pump, we recommend that you do your best to make sure that the container is not in direct sunlight as this will help to keep the water oxygenated.
