Mugwump's Fish World

 my @$$ the last couple days as I watched my brine shrimp production go STRAIGHT down the crapper, and I scratched my noggin wondering what I was screwing up, or if my eggs just overnight ALL went to crap.

My tap water here is TYPICALLY like liquid rock......PH of 8 plus , and TDS readings of 350-400 and at times higher are typical.

Routine for making a batch o shrimp was water straight outta the tap, add some salt, the eggs and plop the container into my shrimp makin box......( a styro constructed box to hold my shrimp makin bottles with a 15wt lightbulb in it to keep everything 80-82)......18-24 hrs later,and  I WAS getting GREAT hatchouts.

Something changed and the hatchouts plummeted to MAYBE 10%.....tried new salt...a different jar of eggs ( I typically split 1lb cans into 4-5 jars).....warmer in the box...cooler...check salt content....add a lil....take a lil away...........NOTHING I did for 3 days gave me the hatchouts that I was getting just 4-5 days earlier.

"ONLY" took me 3 days to decide to check the tap water......and find out the PH  was now SUDDENLY down to 7.2-7.3 :-[ :-[ :-[

Added some baking soda to get the PH back up in a batch I made up yesterday afternoon and just checked it.......

The world here is once again spinning on its correct axis and WE HAVE SHRIMP......looking like 90% already, and all my fry are having a good ole time sucking down the lil orange buggers.

Without them worms I got from you and Jan.......while I haphazardly flailed :-[ around trying to get the shrimp production back on track.......a BUNCH of my fry would have likely been TOAST.

THANK YOU  once again.

You are welcome  ;D.....micro worms are great for times like that...or even as a supplement....I have vinegar eels again, so we'll have to get you a culture next time we meet up...