Mysteriously dying BBS

[raymond82]

If they hatch OK and then die, it sounds like either a water quality or disease problem (bacteria? fungi?). If the eggs went bad from moisture or other reasons, they just wouldn't hatch.

That was exactly my reasoning and since I did everything as I normally do (including bleaching the bottle every one and a half weeks or so) I figured the water should be the cause. I'm not convinced though, today I harvested from a bottle where I used different salt and no dechlorinator and it was quite good, although there was also some dead. But then this bottle had formed the yellow stuff that normally forms when the bottle needs to be cleaned.

The salt I use contains sodium ferrocyanide as anti-caking agent, could that affect the viability of the BBS?

It's quite difficult to figure out, since there are a couple of variables (and even more combinations) that can be changed and it takes two days before I know the result of a change. Ideally I would set up 4 bottles each with different content but I don't have space for that.

 

[gerald]

That sounds like a possibility - and should be easy to compare side-by-side hatches using salt with anti-caking agent and without (e.g. kosher salt). Table salt has no alkalinity, so your pH may be low. I keep a 5-gal bucket of marine aquarium water (with a filter) for BS hatching, and pour the used hatched water through a fine-mesh cloth and then back into the bucket. The shrimp live 3 or 4 days after hatching (refrigerated in a shallow dish)

quote="raymond82, post: 77002, member: 9982"]
The salt I use contains sodium ferrocyanide as anti-caking agent, could that affect the viability of the BBS?[/quote]

 

[raymond82]

I didn't try it side by side but I did use different salt for two days in a row but didn't see much difference. pH of my tap water is around 8 so that should be fine I think (at least it always used to be). Good idea though to use seawater, so if I understand it correctly you use the same water for a prolonged period?

Somehow the BBS has been better the last week, my guess is that it's because of the increased temperature but I'm still not completely sure.

 

[raymond82]

I shouldn't have posted before harvesting the BBS cause today again it was quite bad. This time I had two bottles that I set up yesterday. Now today I set up two bottles, cleaned them both with bleach and put a different salt in each bottle. Having two bottles simultaneously makes doing these experiments a lot easier than leaving the bottles for 48 hours and harvesting every other day. Tomorrow I compare the two and if they're the same then I try with adding dechlorinator to the water...

 

[gerald]

Yes - I've been working off that same 5-gal bucket of artificial seawater for a year or more. Pouring the used water through tight-mesh cloth to remove particles helps preserve the quality through multiple uses. The "box" filter in the bucket (actually a quart-size soup container) contains Poret foam and aragonite gravel.

Good idea though to use seawater, so if I understand it correctly you use the same water for a prolonged period?

 

[raymond82]

Yes - I've been working off that same 5-gal bucket of artificial seawater for a year or more. Pouring the used water through tight-mesh cloth to remove particles helps preserve the quality through multiple uses. The "box" filter in the bucket (actually a quart-size soup container) contains Poret foam and aragonite gravel.

This sounds very interesting, just so I understand it correctly: do you hatch the BBS in the 5-gal bucket or do you just use that as a reservoir? Ans why do you use the Poret foam and de aragonite gravel? And the tight-mesh cloth, is that like a panty hose or an ever finer mesh?

Yesterday I compared the BBS from the bottles with the two different kinds of salt and I didn't see much difference. The BBS was very lively and quite small, which I guess is to be expected after only 24 hours of hatching at ~20 degrees. I therefore reused whatever cysts didn't hatch, added some new cysts and again used different kinds of salt for the two bottles. Today the BBS was really bad again, basically the same as it was before. That leads me to conclude that it's not the salt, although a lot more had hatched in the bottle with the special artemia salt but I think that's a coincidence, anyway the problem was not in the hatching but in the survival.

Today I ran the two bottles both with the cheap salt I usually use, now one of the bottles has dechlorinator to see if the water is the problem.

I was wondering, in ~1.8 liter of water that I use for hatching I put a little less than 2 spoons that came with the Brine Shrimp Direct can (not sure if these are always included but I think they are around 1 gram of cysts). Is that an appropriate amount for such an amount of water?

 

[DBlauj]

My bbs problem seems to be that they are not surviving as long as I am normally use to seeing them live. Usually I can get a couple days out of a batch. These last few batches the artemia will not survive past 2-3 hrs. I tried shortening my hatching period from 24-20hrs and it seems I get a better hatch rate but the artemia still are not living that long. I am pretty confused as to what it might be other than the water (which I don't know how to combat). I've added conditioner which I've never needed to before, used different salts, even used water from my bathroom and kitchen sink, added a light for heat then took it away, but still having problems. I hope that if it is the water that it's just something passing through since all this snow has melted away.

 

[raymond82]

It's interesting cause your problem sounds a lot like mine, I do hope that with these standardized tests I'm doing now I'm able to figure out what's wrong. If it's the water I hope to see an effect of the dechlorinator, if I don't see an effect I will change the bottles and tubing etc. In the mean time I do get quite annoyed with it, and of course I have very little BBS to feed which is not nice either.

 

[gerald]

I hatch them in an upside-down soda bottle, in approx 1 liter of water. The bucket is just a reservoir for storing and filtering the artificial seawater - it stays covered and dark. The Poret foam is for bacterial filtration and the aragonite is for adding Ca & Mg (hardness) and CO3 (alkalinity). If pH drops too low, I might add some baking soda (NaHCO3) in the bucket too. Right after hatching I put them in a shallow flat-bottom glass dish in my refrigerator so they are spread out thin and not piled on top of each other. For the storage dish I use filtered water from my bucket, NOT the water they were hatched in. If you use a hatching cone or upside-down soda bottle and let the newly-hatched shrimp pile up at the bottom, it only takes a few minutes for them to get oxygen-stressed and then they don't recover. So I try to do the harvesting quickly and not let them stay piled on top of each other. Using this method I can go about 4 days before I need to start a new hatch.

 

[raymond82]

This method sounds really good to me, just the fact that it's not necessary to harvest BBS every day is already a great plus but also reusing the water sounds very nice. After I finish trying to figure out why my BBS keeps dying I'm going to consider to set it up like you do. Yesterday again all BBS was dead, both from the water with dechlorinator as well as from the water without. Now I'm trying with different tubing, I used some glue in the other tubing that might not have been safe. If that doesn't help I'm gonna make artificial sea water from RO water.

 

[DBlauj]

Just wondering what your ph was for hatching and keeping the artemia alive? I've since added a pinch of baking soda to raise my ph and it seems to have really given me better and consistent hatch and survival rate. My last three batches have been significantly better and they seem to be surviving past 24hrs now. Don't know if you use baking soda but maybe this may help you.

 

[raymond82]

I don't use baking soda but it's worth giving a try. My tap water has a pH of 8 and a KH of 8 so I never thought it was necessary. However, I still haven't figured out what the problem is (I've tried the water, hatching time, the bottles and the salt) but still the quality is highly variable. So maybe I'll give the baking soda a try!

 

[raymond82]

I'm starting to think that the mystery might not ever get solved. Yesterday I harvested BBS from two bottles that were set up identically, this time with bottled water. The pH of the water was only 7.5 so I was afraid it wouldn't work but it worked out fine but only for one bottle. So with everything identical (except for the place where the bottle was), one hatch was fine while the other was all dead.

Today I harvested from a bottle that ran for 48 hours and again everything dead, a bottle next to it ran for 24 hours and it was fine. So I guess for now I'll stick to 24 hours, it's a waste because quite a large proportion hasn't hatched then but at least I have some BBS. I'm gonna try putting the cysts in the morning now, so they hatch for ~32 hours instead of 48. I'll also try the baking soda and hatching in artificial sea water.

 

[gerald]

... and thus is why scientists replicate their experiments ... |;>)

So with everything identical (except for the place where the bottle was), one hatch was fine while the other was all dead.

What about your air pump; could it be pulling in something toxic, such as tobacco smoke, glass cleaner vapor, air freshener ...??? Or could copper be getting into your water?

 

[raymond82]

Haha, yeah I'm replicating now! So far with not much success, still the BBS is mostly dead. Now I'm testing with RO water and special artemia salt.

I don't know how copper could get in the water. I also thought of the airpumps but they're the same ones we've always used. Maybe it's time to replace the piece of filter in front of the inlet. Anyway I've used two pumps and with both of them the result was the same.

 

[Mike Wise]

Copper pipe is found in most modern water plumbing (my 100+ year old house still has iron pipes). It's not the air pump that could be the problem, but what is in the air that the pump is pumping into the bottle. Any chemical used near the pump can be pumped into the bottle. I once helped a day care facility that suddenly lost fish in their aquarium. Nothing had changed; same equipment, same maintenance. After a lengthy talk and look around, we discovered the problem. They had moved the air pump from the top of the tank (where it made too much noise) to the floor - which was cleaned with an ammonia base floor cleaner every night! The pump was pumping ammonia and who knows what else into the tank. Once the pump was moved to a higher location away from the nighly cleaned area, everything returned to normal.

 

[raymond82]

That's a great story, it must have been great to have figured that problem out! Such a small detail, with such big consequences. These are the kind of experiences that novices like me can learn a lot from!

Iron pipes? That's really old-fashioned! I remember that lead pipes were quite common, which is why as a kid I was always told not to drink warm water. Nowadays I think copper is mostly used here, but I don't really think it's copper from the pipes, if it would have been it would have showed earlier I guess.

I have the same feeling with the pump, which has been in the same position for really long now and I never had any problems until now. My girlfriend smokes but that was never a problem before either.

In the mean time again today the BBS was completely dead, again from tap water and normal salt. A couple of days ago I harvested quite some from a bottle with RO water and special artemia salt. I set it up again (replicating!!), tomorrow I'll harvest and then I'll know more.... But it's a big disaster, I've had normal BBS every now and then but not regularly anymore for a month or two. Luckily I have only really small fry that can eat microworms and my ~ 1 cm big eremnopyge fry already eats frozen food.

 

[Mike Wise]

I still have lead sewer pipes in my home. Like the house, they are over 100 years old. I tend to agree with you about the copper pipes. Usually the copper forms an oxide coat after a couple of years. This slows the leeching of copper from the pipes. Perhaps your water supply has had a small chemical change. I know that zinc can retard the development of some fish eggs. It's possible that you were successful with R/O water because something was removed from your water by the R/O unit. Hope you find the secret soon.

 

[raymond82]

Today I harvested BBS from two bottles filled with RO and special JBL artemia salt and the difference is huge. Even though I have to say there was still a considerable amount of BBS sinking to the bottom, overall it's much better. Since of course now both the salt and the water are different, I set up one more test with tap water and the JBL salt. Tomorrow I'm hatching from a bottle with RO, the old salt I used to use and a tiny bit of epsom salt, that will also be informative. Anyway it's good to know I'm finally getting somewhere!

On Monday I will contact the water company to see if they're doing something to the water. I wouldn't be surprised, as it has been really dry for quite a while now and we also went through a long and frosty winter.

 

[Apistomaster]

Try my method.
I use a 2+ liter hatching cone.
I use 2 liters of water and 4 tbs of marine salt with heavy aeration.
Marine mix salt produces much better hatches than other salts.
I hatch 2 tsp of cysts.
I use a 15 watt compact fluorescent lamp near the hatching cone.
I cover the entire apparatus with an inverted plastic garbage bag to keep the water warm.
Hatch is ready within 24 hours.
The nauplii naturally accumulate at the bottom.
There are too many to leave in the hatcher and all should be harvested entirely each day or they will suffocate.
The useful life of the harvested nauplii may be greatly extended by placing them in a liter clean marine water placed in a plastic shoe box and then kept in a refridgerator. Up to 2 days. They remain usable even if some have died as long as they were immediately refridgerated.

If your hatches are still unsatisfactory then suspect the quality of the cysts. This varies widely depending on the source.