I started decapsulating my brine shrimp eggs (BBS) a short time ago to improve the hatchability of some old eggs. I found that it drastically improved the hatchability, and also made hatching and harvesting much easier. I can now hatch my BBS without using light (I keep everything else the same though) and when I harvest, there are no shells to remove. Now I can hatch my BBS, filter the entire brine solution out and feed everything to my fry. If they didn't hatch it's not a problem because even unhatched decapsulated BBS is safe to feed.

You can store decapsulated BBS eggs in the refridgerator for several weeks. I continued to use one batch for about 2 months before they finally lost their hatch rate.

What you need:

• brine shrimp eggs
• 1 Gallon ice cream tub (empty)
• 1 cup of bleach
• lots of salt
• lots of dechlorinator
• lots of coffee filters or a fine-mesh permanent coffee filter or brine shrimp net
• a timer
• bottle/container for storage

Steps:

1. Put brine shrimp eggs into the ice cream tub and fill that with about one cup of cool/cold tap water. Let it sit for at least an hour (OK for up to 8 hours). This rehydrates the dry eggs and softens the shell so the bleach will penetrate. This step is CRUCIAL or the bleach won't be able to get through the shell.
2. Put about 1 teaspoon of salt (you can use regular table salt) into the cup (apparently it stops the eggs from clumping later on). Add bleach. Start your timer to count down 3 minutes.
3. Stir the mixture continuously, you'll see the shell dissolving, light foam may form, and the eggs color change from dark brown to a grayish then to an orangey. This is a chemical reaction, and the reaction releases heat. Feel the temperature of the tub...if it gets warm, do this in a cold water bath. Too warm water can destroy the eggs and you won't be able to hatch them.
4. When 3 minutes is up, and the eggs are about the same color as hatched BBS would normally be, fill the tub with cold water. Stir and let the eggs settle to the bottom. Use a turkey baster to siphon the solution from the eggs - you will likely only be able to get down to an inch or two of water. Repeat this step many, many times.
   • An alternative would be if you have a Brine Shrimp net or fine mess permanent coffee filter - then you can pour the whole mixture into the filter/net and then rinse, rinse, rinse and rinse under cold tap water.
   • The idea is to get rid of the bleach as quickly as possible. I found that coffee filters at this stage just simply dissolved from the bleach and you end up with a messy situation. You will lose some eggs either way… but they are a small number comparatively.
5. Add some dechlorinator to a cup or two of water, give it a good swirl, then pour that over the rinsed eggs. And rinse, rinse, rinse and rinse some more!
6. Filter the eggs from the remaining water.
7. Make a fully saturated brine solution with aquarium salt (I actually use the brine from my water softener since it's always fully saturated and easy to get). Add the rinsed eggs. The brine will preserve the eggs by sucking out all the water from the eggs. Keep this in the fridge.
8. To take some out for hatching, I simply suck up a half tsp or so of the eggs in the brine solution using one of those pipettes from the aquarium test kits. I add it directly to the brine solution of the hatchery.

a few notes...

• The more you do it the more it becomes second nature, you'll notice the color difference much easier after trying it a few times.
• Smell for bleach. If you smell bleach, rinse again! Never hurts to dump a bit of dechlorinator into the storage bottle either.
• Things that make decap a failure
  1. didn't hydrate.
  2. bleach water got too warm. If this happens, reduce the amount of eggs you decap in a batch.
  3. bleached for too long.
  4. leftover bleach slowly destroys the eggs in storage.
  5. storage brine wasn't salty enough, and eggs went bad.
  6. eggs were bad to begin with (although I did it with REALLY old eggs that had been in my refrigerator for more than a year and they did fine).
• I once tried to use vinegar in my process - supposedly the vinegar neutralizes the bleach. I added 1 cup of vinegar to the bleach/water mixture when I tried it (not sure if that's what is supposed to be done or not…) and it put off some nasty fumes! That batch of decapsulated eggs never did have a good hatch rate either. So, I guess I can't recommend using vinegar in the process….