i have newly hatched nothobranchius killifish fry and was wondering if they will eat frozen brine shrimp?

I would very much doubt that Nothobranchius fry would eat frozen brine shrimp; certainly they will not thrive on it. You need live newly-hatched brine shrimp nauplii or some other live food of the same size or smaller.

Brian Watters

ok, another question, i bought brine shrimp eggs online any tips on how to hatch them?

First I am assuming you do not have a lot of fish you want to feed with the newly hatched brine shrimp. If that is the case to hatch a small amount, make a salt water mix using NON iodized salt, either aquarium salt or kosher salt or any salt clearly labeled NON iodized. Mix a about a third cup of salt per quart of water. The water may be straight tap water as chlorine will not hurt the BS eggs. Add a pinch of baking soda to keep ther water alkaline(Arm and Hammer stuff) and maybe a big pinch up to an eighth teaspoon of BS eggs. At mid 70 degree temperatures the BS eggs should start to hatch out in about 30 hours and should be used within 6 hours of hatching. Warmer , like 80 and it will take closer to 24 hours. The newly hatched brine shrimp should be used within 8 hours since they do use the nutrients that they got from the egg and become less nutricious for the fish. IF you want several feeding over a one day period, regrigerate the salt water-brine shrimp mix to slow the growth of the newly hatched shrimp. Don't try to keep them for a long period as they will not be nutricious to the fish. To harvest the BS, put a light near one end of the container and the shrimp will move to the light and you can siphon them out using just a piece of airline tubing through a hankerchief or a brine shrimp net if you have one. Once in the net invert it into a container of water and then use an eyedropper to put some into the fry container. I do not mention to rinse the salt from the collected brine shrimp since a little salt will help keep down velvet in the Nothos. With other fry or killies, rinse the collected BS with a litle fresh water prior to putting in the tank to keep from building up salt in the fish water. For larger quantities of brine shrimp, use on old gallon jar with more salt, and insert an airline to keep the eggs from settling out to the bottom. A gallon jar with areation is big enough to hatch out about a heaping tablespoon of brine shrimp eggs. With that system, you remove the airline once the eggs hatch (the water with eggs will look a little more orange than brown as when you just added the eggs. Hatched BS are more orange to yellow in color than the brown eggs) and allow the brine shrimp to settle to the bottom then siphon out thru the net and rinse with fresh water.

is non iodized sea salt alright?

Yes, it will be. It is often recommended to use non-iodized salt but in my opinion, it is not the iodine in salt that causes any problems. Fish require iodine for thyroid function, like other animals (and us). If they are iodine deficient, they can get goiter. I have seen this in iodine deficient areas.

The problem is more likely to be other additives that are present in iodized table salt, in particular anticaking chemicals added to allow free flow and non-clogging of salt shakers, etc. These can include magnesium carbonate or sodium silicoaluminate. I don't think magnesium carbonate could cause any problems but the sodium silicoaluminate could.

This is not directly pertinent to hatching brine shrimp, but to adding salt to water the fish are in. Any crude salt will work for hatching the shrimp. I use bulk salt bought at the local feed store because it's cheap. You could also use the salt sold for ice cream makers.

Barry Cooper

I buy big sacks of salt at an Agway agricultuural store. I learned that the local fish store gets the same stuff and rebags it and sells it as "aquarium salt" for about $2 for a 2 # bag and never heard of any problems. It is not a bad deal if you don't want to get 50 # of salt at a time. I was hatching a lot of BS and used to get a couple of the big sacks each time I went to Agway.