Food drip system

keddre · Sep 4, 2017

I would like to create a way to slowly drip brine shrimp in my tank all day, but my creative juices isn't flowing.

Anyone have any idea on how I can do this since a gate baffle and tying the hose would prevent them due to their larger size? Thanks in advance

nautical_nathaniel · Sep 4, 2017

At first I was thinking of a dosing pump but I'm not sure if that would work all that well either since it would definitely squish some of the shrimp going through the tube and probably not pick up much through suction.

mcarroll · Sep 4, 2017

With just a tiny amount of automation and a dosing pump you could do it.....but that's not a drip, per se. It would cost some $$.

But a timer to cut off the air bubbles for a few minutes to allow the BBS to collect in a common spot and then another timer to turn on the dosing pump after the correct number of minutes. Then back to bubbling the BBS until the next feed. Assuming you're dosing regularly, I wouldn't even worry about survival in the tube. (Some dosing pumps can run backward though to put any live ones stuck in the tube back into the aeration chamber.)

jaws789832 · Sep 4, 2017

I made something like what you are talking about for my seahorse tank, only on that one, a pump turns on 5 times a day for 30 seconds and gives them a good amount of brine shrimp. If you just dripped water into a brine container that overflows into the tank I am not sure how many brines would actually get into the tank though.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ughhhh-i-have-some-work-to-do.306431/page-4#post-3929612

jaws789832 · Sep 4, 2017

Wonder if you could use an old power filter, don't plug it in, fill it with water and brine shrimp, add a little air, attach a little led light to the top, drip water into it and if they would overflow into the display at a slow rate?
Of course all this would still require you hatching and enriching in a different vessel

keddre · Sep 5, 2017

mcarroll said:
a dosing pump you could do it

I was thinking about a dosing pump but I'm worried that they would die/be chopped up because of the pump itself and the adult shrimp getting stuck and clogging it up.

jaws789832 said:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ughhhh-i-have-some-work-to-do.306431/page-4#post-3929612

I like this idea and I could just alleviate a little flow from my surge device to push them out the container. Thanks

jaws789832 said:
Wonder if you could use an old power filter, don't plug it in, fill it with water and brine shrimp, add a little air, attach a little led light to the top, drip water into it and if they would overflow into the display at a slow rate?

I see what your saying, but I think your seahorse tank idea would work better. Thanks again

mcarroll · Sep 5, 2017

keddre said:
I was thinking about a dosing pump but I'm worried that they would die/be chopped up because of the pump itself and the adult shrimp getting stuck and clogging

BBS won't get hurt – too small. And not a big deal if one or two did get smashed.

(Remember that the tubing only gets pinched shut in small places to the liquid can be "pushed along" through the tube. They're planktonic and should stay inside the water when the tubing gets pinched.)

I don't think you'll be growing out adults, will you? Buying frozen is almost always a much better deal and works in almost all cases.

For that matter, you might want to consider "instant" BBS and decapsulated brine shrimp eggs.

You might really need live, but one of these options might work just as well.

2¢

mcarroll · Sep 5, 2017

Detail +

Instant Baby Brine Shrimp

mcarroll · Sep 5, 2017

Decapsulated Brine Shrimp

keddre · Sep 5, 2017

mcarroll said:
I don't think you'll be growing out adults, will you

Yes, I have a five gallon culture tank where I will have a mix of adults and nauplii that I'm going to feed my tank like I do with tiggers.

mcarroll said:
You might really need live, but one of these options might work just as well

Honestly I'm not 100% sure, I'm building up an NPS/filter feeder tank and am going with the shotgun method mixing live foods with prepared ones

jaws789832 · Sep 5, 2017

I buy these. For the 8 bucks its well worth not having to hassle decapping them myself. The hatch rate is way better than when I do it myself
http://www.aquaculturenurseryfarms.com/hatching-decapsulated-brine-shrimp-eggs/

revhtree · Sep 5, 2017

Following

Larry L · Sep 5, 2017

For time-release feeding of frozen foods, there is also this: http://smarterreefs.com/

Shaun Sweeney · Sep 5, 2017

Fun stuff. Install a small container downstream of the pump. Has to have a waterproof opening that you can use to drop the shrimp into. Install in such a way that it can't syphon then have the dosing pump push tank water into the container which will force the shrimp into the tank. Voila! Done.

ThunderGoose · Sep 6, 2017

Not sure how this would work but I would be thinking of a gravity fed dripper - similar to an IV bag/line. They're designed to adjust the rate of drips from full flow to very, very slow.

ChuzUThisDay · Sep 6, 2017

revhtree said:
Following

Me too!

radiata · Sep 6, 2017

keddre said:
I would like to create a way to slowly drip brine shrimp in my tank all day, but my creative juices isn't flowing.

Anyone have any idea on how I can do this since a gate baffle and tying the hose would prevent them due to their larger size? Thanks in advance

Doh, I'm confused. What kind of brine shrimp are you asking about here? Adult live, adult frozen, newly hatched live or newly hatched frozen?

keddre · Sep 6, 2017

Sorry for the late response, my professor took a week off for a conference but decided he wanted to play catchup later so I'be had my face buried in old texts the past couple days. Anyway

All:
I have an idea of what I want to do and I'll upload a sketch tomorrow, but my idea is to divert flow from my surge device I'm building into a bottle or similar that will hold the shrimp so that every minute or so they are forced out. While this isn't a slow, constant drip like I wanted originally, it should get the job done.

Shaun Sweeney said:
Install a small container downstream of the pump. Has to have a waterproof opening that you can use to drop the shrimp into. Install in such a way that it can't syphon then have the dosing pump push tank water into the container which will force the shrimp into the tank. Voila! Done.

I'm honestly not sure what you are getting at. What I'm thinking is that (if I'm understanding) i should cut a bottle in half as if I was doing a hatchery, put shrimp in said bottle, then have water be blasted into the opening I made so that shrimp are forced out?