02 Baby Brine Shrimp (Artemia spp., usually A. salina)
Description
This article is from the Aquaria: Food FAQ, by Oleg Kiselev, Don Wilson, and Steve Bartling.
02 Baby Brine Shrimp (Artemia spp., usually A. salina)
Uses:
Baby brine shrimp are a food of choice for the newly hatched
fry of egg-layers and other small fish. They're also eaten
voraciously by some surprisingly large marine fish and make a
good substitute macro-plankton for some filter-feeding
invertebrates.
Culturing:
To hatch brine shrimp, one needs very little. A hatchery can be
built out of almost anything, such as 1 gal plastic milk jug to
12 oz soda bottles. Also, stores sell "shrimpolators" and
plastic hatching cones. Everything works, but a container with
a concave or conical bottom is the best because the water flow
has no dead spots. Add air tubing connected to a small pump,
put a light over it and keep temperature around 85 degrees if
the shrimp are to hatch faster.
Ed Warner's book suggests 3.5 table spoons of uniodized salt
per gallon of water. He suggests using the cheapest salt
available, like the water softener salt at $3 for 50 lb. SF Bay
Brand recommends hardening the water to improve hatching and
shrimp survival, so adding some Epsom salt and a tiny pinch of
baking soda may be a good idea.
In order for the shrimp to hatch and not die, the water in the
culture must be vigorously turned over to keep the shrimp in
suspension. This can be done by aerating the water just like
everyone else, using a 12 inch length of rigid air tubing
attached to a 3 inch tail of flexible tubing attached to an air
pump. The rigid section keeps the hose from slipping out of the
container. Aquarists using airstones may find that they crud up
and clog too often in this environment.
To get nauplii (hatched brine shrimp) out, turn off the air,
put a piece of rigid air (1/8") tubing with 2-3 ft of flex
tubing attached into the culture, and let the stuff settle. The
shrimp egg cases will collect on top of the water, the shrimp
ought to sink to the bottom (if the water is not too saline).
Then just siphon the wriggling shrimp off into a brine shrimp
(fine) net, dump the lot into a cup of water and use an eye
dropper to dispense to the fish.
The nauplii will live in the tank for up to 24 hours.
Sources:
Eggs can be bought in most aquarium and pet shops or by mail
order. Eggs bought in bulk (such as 1 lb cans) will be much
less expensive than the tiny ampoules sold in stores. The cans
may be held in the freezer, with 2-3 weeks worth of supply held
in a small, tight-lid jar.
Ed Warner insists that the eggs of brine shrimp need at least a
year of incubation to become ready to hatch. He goes on to say
that a low yield from a newly opened can of shrimp eggs may be
due to insufficient incubation time and that the best hatches
come from the eggs that had been kept for a few years, with the
eggs kept for 5 years in a vacuum packed airtight container
giving perfect 100% hatch rates.
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