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How dangerous are bbs shells or how to remove them ?

anewbie

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,879
So i setup a larger bbs hatchering one that is sort of the inverted bottle sort - when i harvest the bbs at the bottom and examine them i'm noticing two things:
1) some of them are dead
2) there is a small amount of shells or unhatched eggs
-
I presume if the dead ones are 'bad' the fish won't eat them but i'm worried about the eggs/shells - while the % of eggs/shells is small it is definitely more than the previous hatchery i used - what i 'read' on the internet is these are deadly so how do you get rid of them or are they not super deadly in small quantities ?
 

MacZ

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,586
Location
Germany
Shells float, dead eggs sink.

The shells CAN be detrimental to the health of fry, but it takes them to eat a lot of the shells to get in trouble. The dead eggs are not really dangerous and more of a problem for water quality.

So, remove as many of the dead eggs and shells as possible when harvesting and that's it. You can almost never guarantee there are none at all in the portion you feed, so please take these horror stories with a metric ton of salt. Almost all of these stories came from people that had completely different, preventable problems causing their losses and they chose to excuse their lack of care by putting the blame to the eggs.
 

anewbie

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,879
Shells float, dead eggs sink.

The shells CAN be detrimental to the health of fry, but it takes them to eat a lot of the shells to get in trouble. The dead eggs are not really dangerous and more of a problem for water quality.

So, remove as many of the dead eggs and shells as possible when harvesting and that's it. You can almost never guarantee there are none at all in the portion you feed, so please take these horror stories with a metric ton of salt. Almost all of these stories came from people that had completely different, preventable problems causing their losses and they chose to excuse their lack of care by putting the blame to the eggs.
Do unhatched eggs float? As far as i can tell they don't. Not sure if there is a way to filter them out.
 

anewbie

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,879
Yea bit of googling what I need is 80 mesh to filter out the shrimp from the eggs. Do you have a feel for how long they can last in the refridge before they loose nutrition value - i can freeze them but then i would have to thaw them and the frys prefer to chase moving targets.
 

Mike Wise

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
11,452
Location
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
I've been hatching bbs since before most of you were born. I've never had a problem with the few egg shells mixed in with the bbs. As MacZ wrote, take these horror stories with much, much more that a grain of salt.

At times when I do find that I have an excess of shells mixed in with the bbs, I simply pour off the top 3/4 of the cup with the shrimp, refill the cup with water, wait a few minutes for the shells to settle to the bottom and drain off most of the remaining bbs and throw out the shells.
 

anewbie

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,879
So this is amusing (no i will not buy them); there are iron coated bbs eggs so you can use a magnet to remove the shells. Not cheap ;)
 

anewbie

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,879
As P. T. Barnum was reported to say, "There's a sucker born every minute."
Well... so i was thinking about this a bit; on the one hand i wouldn't try it just for fear of iron particles getting into the water; but conversely one has to ask at one point does something new transition from a fools errand to an innovation ?
 

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