Raising Brine shrimp to Adults

[novice breeder]

Hi Guys,
Has anyone successfully raised brine shrimp to adults? I would like a procedure and details of all equipment/ items needed. Thanks.

[seanyuki]

Nice to have live adult BS......Andrew Soh mentioned in his books how to raise them to adulthood......great food for discus.

[Josef]

I'd like to know about this as well.

[Chicago Discus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2KeGIF7oY7E

This might help .............Josie

[bogia99]

any one has luck raising brine shrimp ? my seems to survive only a few days after hatching and then died.

40G tank @ 1/2 full
airstone circulation
~1.02 specific gravity
outdoor location, shade with partial sun in the afternoon
night time temp can go down to 62F-65F <- I think this may be the problem ?
feeding it with green water algae (in my little bottle)

[bogia99]

Update: I have abandoned the 40G / outdoor approach due to many trials and failed. Nauplii seems to survived a few days then died.

Then I found this article (pasted below) which is detailed enough and very useful.

I switched to a 10G and keep it indoor. Very simple setup - a heater set at 80F, a small sponge filter but without the sponge. salt mix at 1.02ppm, some lights.

Initially I used Morton salt (the cheap kind at homedepot for $5/50lbs bag). The hatching rate was bad and survival rate was even worst. I was playing with the 2liter bottle hatching with different setting of bubble rate. I was able to hatch, net out and dumped into the 10G. Nauplii survived for a few days only. After 4-5 trials then it dawn on me that it maybe the salt which killed the nauplii. I went to LFS and bought some marine salt over the weekend. Set it up on Sunday and whoalaaa ... a tankful of nauplii yesterday. Check on it today and its look good, unlike previous trials. Nauplii survives the 2nd day in massive number. mixed some tetrabit color + flake + water = liquid food. Will start feeding it, a few drops, maybe tomorrow or so. Will keep this post ongoing for a while to see if those Nauplii will grow to adulthood -> then feeding time :)

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how to raise brine shrimp video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=2KeGIF7oY7E


How to Raise Brine Shrimp
By: Barbie Bischof
Start out by purchasing a packet of dehydrated brine shrimp cysts.
Live Fish Food
Because of the variety of new and specialized fish food products, fish owners rarely think about raising food for their pets, but it is quite possible to do. Although you should have some experience with a saltwater system as well as a certain level of creative innovation for such an undertaking, raising live food such as brine shrimp can be rewarding.

Brine shrimp are a popular species to culture at home because it is relatively easy to keep a population of them – especially if you know a little about how they live. These zooplankton are also called artemia, and like shrimp, crabs and lobster, are a kind of crustacean.

Following these basic guidelines and combining them with your experience, you can maintain a healthy stock of brine shrimp. Once you've tinkered your way to a system that works, you can just kick back and watch yet another of nature's scenes unfold as your fish chase after and gobble up their homegrown prey.

Getting Started

You should begin with a 10-gallon glass tank. Take a thin sheet of acrylic or formica, slightly bigger than the tank dimensions and jam it into the bottom of the tank so it creates a concave surface. Seal the seams around the acrylic with silicone. You want to eliminate corners which become dead spaces that will inhibit water circulation and collect hatched shells and other waste. To enhance circulation, depending on how creative you want to get, you can glue a partition in the center of the tank, forming a raceway.

Circulation and Aeration

Setting up a circulation system can be tricky. To grow healthy adult brine shrimp, strong aeration and good water circulation are essential. You will need to come up with a way to rig your pump so that water is continually circulating through all regions of the tank. If you use airstones, use only those that make large bubbles because brine shrimp will ingest small air bubbles (or they lodge in their swim-appendages), which forces them to the surface where they will eventually die.

Lighting, Temperature and Water Quality

Brine shrimp are attracted to light so use a low light level, otherwise they will expend much of their energy (which lowers their quality) in an effort to remain near the light source. A 60- to 100-watt light will suffice but hatching will require higher light levels (2000 lux constant illumination). Optimal temperature conditions range from about 77 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the strain that is cultured. They prefer a salinity between 30-35 ppt (1.02ppm) and a pH of around 8.

Maintenance

To keep water quality adequate, change about 20 percent of the water each week and clean the bottom of the tank every few days. To do this, turn off the air and let the tank settle. Shine a flashlight at the surface and wait a moment as the artemia are drawn to it. Siphon off the material on the bottom, consisting mainly of molted shells.

Lifecycle

Start out by purchasing a packet of dehydrated brine shrimp cysts at an aquarium or pet shop. These cysts can stay viable for many years, providing they are kept dry and unexposed to the air – a container in the refrigerator keeps them well. The cysts contain dormant embryos that will resume their development once they have been placed in water.

After 15 to 20 hours in water that is about 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the cysts burst and the embryo leaves the shell. In this "umbrella" stage, the embryo hangs beneath the cyst shell, still enclosed in a membrane.

Once it separates from its shell, it becomes a free-swimming young shrimp called a nauplii. It is brownish in color from the yolk it carries to complete its development. After about 12 hours, these nauplii molt and begin to feed normally, filtering tiny particles such as microalgae and bacteria, out of the water.

It takes about eight days and 15 molts for nauplii to reach adulthood. In low salinity and good food conditions, females will produce 10 to 11 broods of a few hundred free-swimming nauplii over about 50 days. Adult brine shrimp get to be about 8 mm long, but in the right environment can reach 20 millimeters.

Throughout their lifecycle, brine shrimp change in quality, a big consideration for the aquarist. Newly hatched shrimp are rich in fat (about 23 percent dry weight), which is used up as they develop (dropping to about 7 percent as pre-adults). Adult brine, however, are high in protein: about 63 percent compared to 45 percent for the nauplii. So, if you have young fish, which require a high-fat diet for growth, you need to harvest nauplii. But if your tank has many older juveniles and adults, which require a high-protein diet for health and reproduction, adult brine shrimp are better.

Harvesting Your Brine Shrimp

To harvest the nauplii, turn off the air and let the stock settle for about 10 minutes. Hatched empty shells will float to the surface; unhatched cysts will sink to the bottom. The napulii will also concentrate on the bottom. Since they are attracted to light, use a flashlight to herd them to where you can scoop them out with a paper cup. Harvesting the adults can be done in much the same way, and the larger adults can be caught in mesh nets. Unhatched cysts can be collected and used for another batch or saved in case something goes wrong and you need to start over.

Feeding

Brine shrimp are filter-feeders and consume particles in the water column as well as inert nutrients. Newly-available enrichment formulas such as Selcon are highly recommended, but you can feed the shrimp fish meal, egg yolk, whey, soybean powder or wheat flour. Dried algae such as spirulina can also be used. Do not overload the tank with inert foods, it leads to fouling and low oxygen levels. Continuous drip-feeding is best. Small amounts several times a day also works.

[bogia99]

Still going strong ... I can see the nauplii grow a bit larger now and so many of them (thousand maybe ?). Feeding them can be a problem. Initially used flake liquid but it was just too large even to the naked eyes. Switched to yeast liquid and it looked better. Fouling is still a high possibility. Dried algae power such as spirulina maybe a better solution - need to buy some soon. A few drops of liquid food once or twice a day, don't know if it is enough to feed all those little guys. Water quality/viz is starting to drop. At some point the setup will crash and brine shrimp will die if no thing done. Waiting for the shrimp to get larger before putting back the sponge to clean the water. May vacuum bottom and floating shell casing this weekend and perhaps add 20% fresh salt water.

side experiment: scooped out a few dozen shrimp and put them in a small cup last night. They survived unheated, @ room temp ~70F. If they survive another night then I may get several cups going at once with different food type like wheat flour or green water from my pond. Wanna find out which is the easiest way to growth out my brine shrimp :)

[bornlooser]

Thanks for sharing bogia99....great stuff...keep us updated.

[Tommo]

You may find this link useful also: http://www.fishlice.f9.co.uk/house/Brine%20Shrimps/Brine%20Shrimps.htm

[bogia99]

You may find this link useful also: http://www.fishlice.f9.co.uk/house/Brine%20Shrimps/Brine%20Shrimps.htm

Thanks a bunch for the link ... great information on the feeding amount + schedule. This was the area that I am unsure of and I am NOT going to spend 30years to do this. Now I feel a lot better :)

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BS survived in the cup 2nd night. I will crank down the heat setting to 74F so the BS can be a bit less active swimming around but instead using that energy for growing.

had a few more cups prepared last night - 2 on yeast, 2 on greenwater, 1 on just plain fresh water.

As expected, the FW cup was voided of BS life this morning. I am wondering how long an adult BS will survive in the discus tank ? interesting to find out soon.

The other 5 cups look good

Main tank looks good - a bit dirty , added a couple drops of neutralizer liquid (Amquel+) to get rid of the Ammonia, will vacuum a little bit and add fresh salt water

will use this format to track progress:

12oz Cup #1 - on yeast:
12oz Cup #2 - on yeast:
12oz Cup #3 - on flake:
12oz Cup #4 - on light greenwater:
12oz Cup #5 - on heavy greenwater:
Main 10G tank @ 74F – on both greenwater and yeast liquid:

[bogia99]

12oz Cup #1 - on yeast: still looking good - very cloudy water - couple of drops of liquid mix a day - probably too much
12oz Cup #2 - on 1/2 yeast: still looking good - kind of cloudy water - 1/2 of drops liquid mix a day - seem to be just right
12oz Cup #3 - on flake: still looking good - kind of cloudy water - 1 drop of liquid mix a day - seem to be just right
12oz Cup #4 - on light greenwater: still looking good - clear water - a couple of spoon of pond water a day - seem to be just right
12oz Cup #5 - on heavy greenwater: still looking good - a couple of spoons of greenwater a day - seem to be the healthiest cup
Main 10G tank @ 74F – on both greenwater and yeast liquid: still looking good (very cloudy - added some water but decided to leave the mess in there for now)
Morton salt in the 50lbs bag is a confirmed KILL
Morton salt (non-iodine) in the 1-lb round container is okay (but least healthy cup - some BS is still surviving but in lesser number - feed it with greenwater, probably good for use with hatching BS)

[bogia99]

12oz Cup #1 - on yeast: still looking good - very cloudy water - couple of drops of liquid mix a day - probably too much
12oz Cup #2 - on 1/2 yeast: still looking good - kind of cloudy water - 1/2 of drops liquid mix a day - seem to be just right
12oz Cup #3 - on flake: still looking good - kind of cloudy water - 1 drop of liquid mix a day - seem to be just right
12oz Cup #4 - on light Pondwater: FAILED - less and less BS every day - Dia: very little food in the pondwater; therefore, those BS must be starving to lalaland
12oz Cup #5 - on heavy greenwater: still looking good - haven't feed any greenwater for the last few days - Still seem to be the healthiest cup
Main 10G tank @ 74F – on both greenwater and yeast liquid: FAILED - less and less BS every day - Dia: don't know , must be the constant agitation of the airpump, dumped the whole thing in a larger tank and removed the heater/airpump - will see what will happen to the rest of the BS going forward.

some observation:
BS seems to be a bit larger now and has adult form , very active, but it is still a long way from the size of BS you can buy at your LFS, roughly 100ish BS in the cup
KISS -> KI2SS for me -> forget about tank+heater+airpump etc ... after hatching, just dump them into a few clear cups and add a few drops of liquid yeast mix. I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out a way to vacuum the junk from the 10G tank without sucking out the BS ... danggggg almost impossible. With the cups, you just let it sit for 1 day without stirring, all the solid stuff seems to settle down on the bottom and then you just gently pour its water+BS into a new cup. Then dump whatever junk left in the cup into a new "dirty" cup collection (repeat this process for the other cups). Done in 5 min :D. I stirred up the cup with a spoon as often as I could - 3/4 times a day.

[bogia99]

12oz Cup #1 - on yeast: still looking good
12oz Cup #2 - on 1/2 yeast: still looking good
12oz Cup #3 - on flake: Crashed
12oz Cup #4 - on light Pondwater: Crashed
12oz Cup #5 - on heavy greenwater: looking just okay
Maintank : Crashed

some observation:

BS seems to be a bit larger now and has adult form
Cup #1 & #2 virtually look the same; therefore, I have combined them into #1 as Yeast cup
Cup #5 BS seems to be a bit smaller than #1 concluded Yeast is better than GW/Spirulina

BS is large and strong enough now to be netted out from the cup and put in a 5G tank with clean water to grow out.

Continue with the experiment:
12oz Cup #1+#2 : Yeast - until crash
12oz Cup #5: Dirty cup - until crash

[bogia99]

12oz Cup #1+#2 : crashed (the cup was looking healthy but it was at 1.25ppm. I added a bit more tank water to bring it down to 1.02 then it crashed the next day)
12oz Cup #5: Dirty cup - crashed by itself

observation: don't fix it if it is not broken :)

Conclusion:

Start out with clean water and marine salt , mixed at 1.02ppm
1 flat teaspoon of BS egg should yield about 4-5 cups (too many in one cup, it will die)
a couple drops of yeast liquid to feed a day, stir it often
BS should survive in the cup for about 2 weeks then it is time to transfer them to a larger freshly mixed saltwater 1G container
I would recommend just dump the BS into a net and transfer it into a new container every week or so as a method of water change (how often depend I guess on the BS bioload and feeding)
at the end of the 4th or 5th weeks, BS should be pretty close to 1/4" or more - either feed it to your fishes or dump them into a 10G as pet :)

you can scale this up or repeat the cycle every week, to keep a steady supply of adult BS.

Completed !

[Rian]

Just wondering, why do you even want to raise brine shrimp to adults?
I thought only young brine shrimp were beneficial to your fish.

[bogia99]

Just wondering, why do you even want to raise brine shrimp to adults?
I thought only young brine shrimp were beneficial to your fish.

fun to look at ?

Throughout their lifecycle, brine shrimp change in quality, a big consideration for the aquarist. Newly hatched shrimp are rich in fat (about 23 percent dry weight), which is used up as they develop (dropping to about 7 percent as pre-adults). Adult brine, however, are high in protein: about 63 percent compared to 45 percent for the nauplii. So, if you have young fish, which require a high-fat diet for growth, you need to harvest nauplii. But if your tank has many older juveniles and adults, which require a high-protein diet for health and reproduction, adult brine shrimp are better.