[Killietalk] Recent messages and a comment or two

["Dan Nielsen" <drdann at frontiernet_net>]

Hi - Because of the way I live, it is frequently a day or two before I catch
up with the various messages that are on the killifish List. Please forgive
me for being a little late in making a few comments.
 I've been decapsulating brine shrimp on a regular basis for about ten years
and I'm quite satisfied with it. The reason that I started it was I couldn't
get any kind of a decent hatch with the standard methods. I suspect the
problem was the water I have here, it is very soft, but has  pH of 8.3. The
only way I got any kind of a hatch was to use a mixture of Kosher salt and
Marine salt in a 3 to 1 ratio and even then you could easily count the
number of hatched shrimp from a full teaspoon of cysts. The method I now use
was well described by Dave Koran, so I won't repeat it. Contrary to Barry's
comment, I soak the eggs in water, with very mild agitation for anywhere
from 1 to 5 hours with no problems. The timing depends on what I'm doing.
Cows are not very considerate of my fish keeping chores. I almost always do
this at night, frequently at 11 PM, having set up the mixture at 6 or 7 PM.
I usually feed the shrimp, not the next morning, but the following morning
(say 30 or so hours) . Usually half in the morning and half at night. The
brine solution that I draw off is discarded and the container filled with
fresh solution. I don't reuse the brine solution. My brine solution is made
from evaporated salt which I buy at the local feed store and runs something
like $8 for 50 lbs. I make the solution in a five gallon bucket and use a
hydrometer to keep track of the density. I don't measure out how much salt I
add, I just adjust as necessary. I do keep an air stone in the bucket. I
usually use a rounded teaspoon of the cysts for each batch and I can feed
about 12 fry tanks twice a day, usually with some left over. When I open a
can I divide it into a couple of freezer containers that I keep in the
freezer. A weekly supply is kept in a little plastic screw jar that is also
kept in a freezer. Please note that I have a small freezer in my fish room
which makes things kind of nice and easy. One of the better investments that
I have ever made.

  I'm sort of surprised that there haven't been any comments about the
"Barbs" about killifish people in TFH and "Flair". TFH suggesting that
killifish people are not only committed but should be, I thought was a
little tacky. The comments about killifish people mentality in "Flair" in
that we flush anything that doesn't have a location code, population code,
etc., I think was a little off base. The Betta people are going to adopt our
species eminence program, but without the killifish mentality. I'm not sure
just what we have done to encourage these comments, but let us try to keep
it up.
  Regards, Dan Nielsen, in beautiful Central New York



To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/