Brine Shrimp.

[Microman]

When hatching Brine shrimp cysts do you get a better hatchrate if you illuminate the hatchery for the whole period of incubation.
At present my hatchery is only illuminated whilst fish house lights are on ,approx 12 hours on, 12 off.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark.

 

[Z Man]

The light should be on constantly. I use a 15w bulb and it is never off and is right up against the glass.

 

[cdawson]

When hatching Brine shrimp cysts do you get a better hatchrate if you illuminate the hatchery for the whole period of incubation.
At present my hatchery is only illuminated whilst fish house lights are on ,approx 12 hours on, 12 off.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark.

I never find there's a better hatch rate, just that they stay nutricious longer because there is a constant supply of food for them.

 

[Sir_BlackhOle]

Food for them? What do you mean?

 

[cdawson]

Food for them? What do you mean?

Constant lighting provides algae for the BBS to feed off of.

 

[fishgeek]

i thought that hatch rate was temperature and salinity dependant , not light

unless of course your only source of heat is te light

in my mind light was to attract the shrimp toward

andrew

 

[tjudy]

Light is a necessity for a large hatch rate in the shortest time possible. I use full spectrum flourescents. I have had students do an experiment where shrimp are incubated with and without light. The batches without light have a significantly lower hatch rate. What is relly cool though, is that the cycsts that are incubated without light hatch very quickly under intense light of the microscope the kids are using to count them.

 

[Microman]

Thanks all for your comments.
Ted,that is the sort of answer that i had expected.I shall certainly be using some sort of full spectrum lighting for the whole incubation period in future.I thought that i was not getting a hatch rate as high as it should be and this goes a long way to achieving this.
It shows that they are light dependant when they actually hatch under the microscope lights.
Thanks again,
Mark.