DIY brine shrimp hatchery

So in preparation for a mandarin in a couple months I've decided to try my hand at hatching brine shrimp as a supplemental food source.

After reading a lot of diy plans I did a version of this:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_brineshrimp_hatchery.php

Here is what I came up with. Should be able to keep a constant stock going with this three unit job. Won't be able to start until after thanksgiving since I will be going on vacation but here are some pictures.

Anyone see any problems? Also, do I want to keep the air lines off the bottom to allow the unhatched eggs to settle?

I'll have my spare t5 fixture for my 20 gallon on it 24/7 while they are hatching (from what I've read this is the way to go.

 

And here's a close up of the bottles...

 

How big are those containers?

Rigid airline will give you more control over your air. If that's just soft airline you have there, you are going to find at times the end of the hose has popped out of the water and your culture is stagnant.

 

thanks for the advice! I'll get that when i get back from vacation! Makes sense.

 

To be honest, most mandarins don't bother with eating brine shrimp, small or large. Not sure why a few will but most won't.
Also, if there are other fish/invertebrates in the tank, they will make short work of any live brine put in the tank and there won't be much actually get the to the mandarin most of the time.
It's best to culture copepods and amphipods for better success.
As for hatching and raising brine shrimp, flat bottoms don't work as well as tapered as in hatching cones.
Inverted pop bottles work pretty good.
2L POP BOTTLE HATCHER
If you can get one eating brine, you may have to grow them out to larger size (juveniles, not adults) before they are really interested.
RAISING BRINE SHRIMP (ARTEMIA)
Next, for proper nutrition for the mandarin (or anything that is going to be eating the brine) it's best to enrich them first with something like Dan's Food from seahorsesource.com.
NHBS nauplii don't eat when first hatched and need to be grown out for a day for them to develop a mouth and anus so they can be enriched.
The nauplii take two 12 hour sessions of new water and enrichment to completely enrich, while juveniles and adults can be done much faster tapering down to about 2 hours for the adults.

 

yeah Mandarins need to be fed copepods, then maybe you can make them eat brine shrimp and frozen food

 

Yeah, I have a fuge for pod growth and will be supplementing their diet with phyto. This was just to supplement (as well as snacks for the other fish) Anyways, I got the idea from melevsreef while readin about mandarin care.

Thanks for the brine hatching tips, I'll have to look into the enriching formula!