My brine shrimp keep dying

[pellikan]

Hi,
I've been trying to raise up some brine shrimp for a couple months now and they keep dying off after a couple days. Hopefully someone will have some advise for me. I've got a 10gal tank which I fill with about 7 gallons from my water change discard. No light other than ambient. I use Scripps water so that'll give you a general idea about it's composition. I've got 2 sponge filters in the tank. No ammonia, ph around 7.7, minimal nitrates.
I have one of the brine shrimp hatchery dishes from BRS and the baby shrimp hatch fine. I put them into the tank and starting on the second day I put in maybe a half gram of spirulina powder each day. About the 3rd day they start dying off. I've tried increasing the amount of food up to about 3x and reducing by 1/2 or so. No dice.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

[Kris]

You got pods or rotifers or some other plankton in your DT that eat BB? Try filtering your tank water, or boil it and cool it before you use it.

[pellikan]

You got pods or rotifers or some other plankton in your DT that eat BB? Try filtering your tank water, or boil it and cool it before you use it.

Wow! Honestly, I never considered something eating my bebees. Of course, that's why I ask, I'm looking for the things I'm not thinking of. Question for you; I'm assuming that the pods or whatever is alive and well in the filter, along with all the beneficial bacteria. Do you think I need to let it dry out for a while to kill them off? Obviously, I'd rather not un-cycle the tank but if there is indeed something killing off the brine shrimp I'm not sure how else to fix it.

Thanks!

[Kris]

Probably best to reset. Sterilize the tank and filters and reboot with bottle bacteria. I don't think the bioload would be huge/demanding for brine shrimp culture on reboot?

[pellikan]

I have a follow up question about re-booting the tank. Would it work to put in a couple ounces of bleach, let it run for a couple days then use Prime to remove the bleach? I’m pretty sure that’d kill everything in the tank but I’m not sure it wouldn’t eff stuff up. What do you all think?

[Kris]

Bleach will work, it will do bad things to the biological living but not a problem for other stuff.

Once you are done, when you want to add new water either boil your scripps or use premix for water changes. Using discarded tank water will take you back to square zero. I'm pretty certain you know this but I didn't want to assume that you did.

The purpose of putting in sterile top off water in the future is to avoid adding predators that might be present in natural or used tank water. Good luck!

[pellikan]

Hey all...
Unfortunately, it didn't work. I poured about half a cup of bleach into the tank and let it run for a couple days. Then I drained and cleaned it out. I made some pre-mix SW with RODI and Reef Crystals. My brine shrimp lasted 3-4 days then all died out. I'm kinda stumped.

[mrtintsd]

add a airstone maybe?

[pellikan]

Thanks for the suggestion mrt, it does have 2 sponge filters already though.

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