I've been hatching Brine Shrimp for a while now, for optimum nutrition of my baby fish. ( At any point in time, we have between 20 and 100 guppy and platy babies.) Hatching Brine Shrimp takes a bit of time... about 30 minutes each day, but it's worth it. The fish love that stuff and grow twice as fast. I used to buy Brine Shrimp eggs from the pet store - San Franscisco Bay brand - but have found a much better and cheaper source now, www.aquacave.com .  
I have a lot of experience with hatching brine shrimp eggs, and thought I'd post my own instructions here.
First of all, decapsulation of the eggs is necessary... don't even think of hatching the eggs without removing the brown shells first! Here are the main reasons:
- fragments of shells can cut up fish babies' intestines,
- it's a hassle to remove the loose shells after hatching,
- removing the shells makes the shrimp hatch faster (6-13 hours vs. 24 hrs.)
- they burn up less energy trying to break through the shell. Therefore, their nutritional value is higher.
Decapsulating is easy... you re-hydrate the eggs for an hour, add some Chlorox, and (after following instructions carefully), you have ready-to-feed eggs in a few minutes... without shells. Bigger fish (meaning: platies and guppies a couple weeks old) will feed on the eggs unhatched, but for small babies, you will still have to hatch them. The movement of the shrimp provides the stimulus for the babies to eat them.
When I started out, I used the instructions from http://www.sfbb.com/technical_info/artemiadecapsulation.html , but in the meantime, I added my own tips and tricks.
For decapsulating of shrimp eggs, these items are needed:
- lots of paper towels!
- 1 TBsp vinegar
- Chlorox ultra (not pictured)
- Some "AquaSafe" or other liquid to make tap water safe for aquarium fish
- 2 cups to hold water, Chlorox, vinegar, and shrimp eggs
- 1 pitcher
- Aquarium Salt (I prefer the not-so-coarse kind for faster dissolving)
- household cling wrap
I start by putting a teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs into a cup. I add some water, add aeration, and cover the cup with cling wrap:
 
 
After about an hour (or a little longer, if I'm wrapped up in some computer project...) I remove the aeration and the cling wrap and add Chlorox to the water/brine shrimp mix. I've found that, with San Francisco Shrimp Egg Brand, it took very little Chlorox to remove the shells. With AquaCave's eggs, I use about as much Chlorox Ultra as I use water.
Supposedly, you have to continue with the aeration while the Chlorox does its work. But, I've found that the Chlorox discolors the aquarium tubing and makes a mess. Now, I just cover the whole thing back up with cling wrap and come with a plastic spoon on the side and stir it up well (splashing the Chlorox/Water/Brine shrimp egg mix around... that's why I put cling wrap back over the most part to avoid getting my clothes ruined.)
Within a few minutes, the eggs turn whitish and then orange. I dump out the content of the cup onto a paper towel that I put on top of the pitcher:
Then I run some fresh water over it until the pitcher is about half full. This step removes most of the Chlorox from the eggs.
To make the Chlorox stop working completely, it has to be counteracted with vinegar. So I mix a cup of water with 1-2 Tablespoons of vinegar, and dump the eggs in there. They tend to cling to the paper towel so I remove as much of the paper towel as possible before putting the eggs into the vinegar solution.
I put the shrimp eggs into the vinegar solution by dunking the paper towel repeatedly. Then, I let them stand for a minute or so.
I rinse out the vinegar like I did it with the Chlorox solution: I spread a paper towel over the empty pitcher, pour the vinegar/water/egg mix, then wash the eggs some more with fresh water from the faucet.
 
Now the shrimp egg are ready for the hatching machine! Two empty coke bottles stuck together, the lower serving as the base, the upper one with aquarium tubing threaded through a hole in the cap.
I turn on the aeration full blast, fill warm water to the "1 Quart" mark, add one tablespoon of aquarium salt, and a few drops of AquaSafe (or any other solution to make tap water safe for aquarium fish).
 
 
Then I add the shrimp eggs. Finished! Now I just turn on the lamp next to the hatching machine to provide the light and warmth that is necessary. The lamp should not be too close, or the heat will burn the eggs.
If a lot of eggs end up sticking to the sides in the upper half of the bottle, I used too many eggs.
I cover the top to avoid splashing and to keep the humidity high.
Any questions? Suggestions for improving the process and hatch rate? Drop me a note at brineshrimp@attention-to-details.com
10:48:32 AM 
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