Raising baby brine shrimps

[timebomb]

Hi, folks,

Several days ago, Selwyn wrote me an email asking questions about raising baby brine shrimp into adults. I replied to his questions and this afternoon, he asked several new ones again. I'm replying to his questions here because Selwyn has already registered himself to be a member of this forum and also because the answers would be of general interest to many other hobbyists.

At 02:37 PM 1/29/2004, Selwyn wrote:

Hi, I've read ur article abt hatching Brine Shrimps. It is the MOST illustrative on the net so far. Good job. =)

I've got a question. Can we actually feed the baby brine shrimp till they grow big into adults? If that is possible, what do we feed them with? I've read an article saying that we can feed them with yeast (common baking yeast). Is that true?

Also, while feeding/growing them, what are the best conditions to keep them alive?

Thank you for your time and attention.

Regards,
Selwyn Sng

Loh Kwek Leong <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi, Selwyn,

Thanks for the compliment about my brine shrimp page. I've always wanted to do the web page about raising baby
brine shrimp into adults but somehow or other, this project never took off. I'm bogged down by many things, one of
which is running the forum at killies.com. If you are unaware of this forum, click on "Forum" on the menu bar and follow
the instructions there to become a member.

Basically, the most important ingredient to raise baby brine shrimp is food. As far as I know, they won't eat yeast. The food
that they love is Spirulina. It's some sort of hormone which Discus breeders mixed in their beefhearts when they feed their
fish. You can buy spirulina from Petmart at Serangoon North. They come in powder form and is green in colour.

To raise the brine shrimp, first of all, you have to make marine water. You can do this by adding marine salt which is
available in many fish shops. After you have hatched some eggs, transfer some baby brine shrimp into a tank of marine
water. It doesn't have to a big tank, something around 10 litres or so would be fine. Another important factor is aeration.
Get an air pump and aerate the tank. But do not run the tubing through an airstone. This is because brine shrimp are
filter feeders. Small bubbles get trapped within their feathery paws and the shrimp will die if they cannot swim properly.
In other words, what you want are big bubbles and not small ones.

To feed the spirulina, put one or 2 small scoops into a bottle and pour in water. You must try and dissolve them completely.
It will take some time and a lot of stirring. After the spirulina has been dissolved, pour the solution into some sort of a syringe. You can
use those syringe bottles that are used to hold soap. Keep this bottle in the fridge when not in use but don't put it in the
freezer. Feed the shrimp twice a day and each time, just give one or 2 squirts. The shrimp, being filter feeders, will filter
the spirulina that is floating in the water. After a while, a lot of uneaten spirulina will sink to the bottom of the tank. If
not removed, this can contaminate the water and kill the shrimp. Siphon this uneaten food once every few days.

If all goes well, the shrimp will reach adult size in 2 to 3 weeks. When matured, the brine shrimp mate all the time and
produce live young. In other words, you don't even have to hatch brine shrimp anymore as you can catch the babies from
the tank and feed them to your fish.

Good luck.

Loh K L

Selwyn wrote:

Thank you Mr Loh. That is very informative. Btw, which yields a higher the success rate? The hatching of brine shrimps, hatching of brine shrimps with their egg shells dissolved, or raising the shrimps to adults?

And if raising adult shrimps gives 'free baby shrimps', why is hatching shrimps more popular instead?

Regards,
Selwyn

Selwyn,

Hatch-rates depend a lot on the quality of the brine shrimp eggs themselves. With premium grade eggs, the hatch-rate is in the region of 90% or more. With poor quality eggs, the hatch-rate can sometimes be only around 10% or even less. It wouldn't be worth the trouble hatching poor quality eggs as the hatching process can be quite a bit of work.

Killifish breeders usually prefer hatching brine shrimp eggs as opposed to other methods because with good quality eggs, they can get a lot of baby brine shrimps. Decapsulating the eggs (removing the shells) is something we do only when the eggs fail to hatch or produce very low hatch rates. The decapsulation process is much more troublesome than simply hatching good eggs.

As for harvesting baby brine shrimps from a brine shrimp culture, the numbers of baby shrimps would be small unless one is using a very big tank. The whole process of raising them into adults and harvesting the baby shrimps would also involve a lot more work.

Killifish breeders with many killifish fry need baby brine shrimps in high numbers everyday. The best way of ensuring that is to hatch good quality eggs everyday in hatchery bottles. It's also the easiest method. A few breeders here have more than 1 bottle of hatchery going everyday as one bottle of baby brine shrimps isn't enough to feed all their fish. One bottle of baby brine shrimps though, can feed a few thousand fry easily but many breeders also feed the shrimps to their adult fish.

Loh K L

[cheeboonyong]

See this

http://www.health-pages.com/sn/

Seems like it's actually a form of algae and not hormone.

I remember reading about this in the Slim 10 courtcase when a expert witness mentioned that spirulina is basically "pond scum, I wonder why people actually bother to eat it".

I personally have spirulina cereals in my cabinet, which is rather tasty I must say

[gweesm1]

Hi Selwyn Sng,

Please read this post or read my article on PMBS here

[RonWill]

Please read this post or read my article on PMBS here

Interesting... never occurred to me to actually raise BS to adults.

Sia Meng, maybe I should give it a go too! (now all I need is another tank! )

Oh.. and before anyone else ask "How do I get green water?", go read this!

[sainikudu]

Hey great post. Thanks very much . The post seems to be very much helpful.
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[ikarsai]

Hello,
I simply put the jar of the baby brine shrimp to a very sunny warm spot. Few always grow up. I never feed them, I guess some algae developed in the jar and they ate them. However my method is not good for rearing many. I had generally 1-2 adults in a quart water. Steve

[mozaqua]

Interesting... never occurred to me to actually raise BS to adults.

Sia Meng, maybe I should give it a go too! (now all I need is another tank! )

Oh.. and before anyone else ask "How do I get green water?", go read this!

Good Luck Ron

I had a couple 25L tanks I used for keeping the brine shrimp, I alternated them when possible. The best method I have found is to keep the culture in indirect sunlight. I never saw green-water in the culture (they eat it too fast), but there was a lot of macro algae which probably contributed to better water quality and O2 levels.

My new cultures are indoors, and do not perform very well. Even under intense artificial light it is difficult to grow algae. I will probably need to triple the light to the culture.

Anyway, for those of you thinking about the brine shrimp culture. Just try it! You might get enough to feed all of your fish, or some of them depending on how many you have. I am always short (time to expand the brine shrimp tank).
Also if you get the oviparous species, like me, no need to hatch eggs any more to get babies. Just sift them through a med-fine mesh net = instant BBS.
Many species which originate from Asia are oviparous. The SF Bay brand is not, from what I have read. Some reports that they all are, if kept under the right conditions and over time they obtain this ability. (Not sure, never tried with SF Bay eggs).

Salinity should be kept at 25-45 ppt. They can live at higher salinity 50+ppt for short periods, there movement will become slow and eventually die (depending on the strain of course).

If you notice a drop in the number of babies, time to check the salinity, and food level. Feeding algae (green water) is best, but yeast can also be fed. I use about a teaspoon of bread yeast, mixed into a cup of hot water. Stir it until all the yeast dissolves, then let it cool and stir it again. Pour the solution into the culture water until it becomes cloudy. Best to do this daily if you have a high density culture. Sometimes I add vitamins to the solution (gut loading). Recommend high light and med airflow during the grow out phase. When it is time for the babies to be born, turn the airflow down to low, that way the babies can survive better without too much turbulence. When they get bigger(2mm+) turn up the air again.
They can live without aeration, but not recommended if you feed yeast. If you are batch culturing on green water, no aeration is needed, since the food is already in the water column.

P.S. : Adding anything like yeast or spirulina powder can cause water quality issues (it is dead plant/animal matter) The yeast will die too, but it is not a problem since the brine shrimp eat the bacteria which consumes the yeast. The right kind of bacteria are needed to keep the culture thriving. You want to keep the culture aerated to support aerobic bacteria, and well light for algae growth. If the culture starts to stink it might be crashing. Check salinity, remove dead stuff at the bottom, stop feeding for a couple days, and it can usually recover.