Raising Brine Shrimp
by "Scott Page" <rs_page/owt.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998
I struggled with BS culture for a very long time. I now have a
protocol which works fantastic. My 12 - 18 year old students can make
it work the first try. BS are hatched (in normal fashion) in inverted
2 liter bottles and harvested after 48 hours. They separated from
empty cysts and moved to growout aquarium. I know that many advocate
conical bottoms for growout aquarium, but we have found that we do not
need them if we hatch the naupli first and transfer them. For growout
aquarium we use 28 5 gallon aquarium, a 30 gallon garbage can, a 25
gallon "muck bucket". two 20 gallon aquarium, and various plastic
"sweater boxes" or storage boxes. They all work fine. We have also
experimented with various substrates, but find that no substrate works
best...except we add a bit of used activated carbon each week (about
1g/l). First I use synthetic sea salt. Other(homemade) mixes have not
worked for me beyond the first week. In my case I reuse the water
which I remove from the marine aquaria in my classroom. The water is
about 3.5% salinity..or..with a specific gravity of about 1.026. This
is heavily aerated for the first week, moderately aerated the second
week, and gently aerated then after. Twice a day we mix up (scale to
your needs) 1 tbs. spirulinia powder (expensive but worth it) in 1.5
liter of pure water. This is blended for 4 - 5 minutes. The
suspension of spirulinia is allowed to settle for the next 5 to 10
minutes. As it settles the liquid suspension forms on the bottom and a
foam layer on top. The suspension is poured through a brine shrimp
net to remove larger particles and most of the foam. This liquid is
then added to bs aquaria at a rate of about 10 - 50 cc per 20 liters
- but only in aquaria which have cleared out the previous feeding and
resultant bacterial cloud from the water. The amount depends upon the
feeding rate of that particular aquarium. It is surprising that when
we measure the dissolved oxygen tolerance - we have found that shrimp
surviving DO concentrations below 1 mg/l. Which brings me to color.
If the DO is low over a sustained period of time - say a 5 to 7 days,
you will notice the shrimp changing from a green to reddish. This is
reportedly caused by development of an oxygen carrying pigment -
hemoglobin or similar pigment. Synthesis of a substance (any
substance) is metabolically costly so undoubtedly the nutrient value,
growth rate, fecundicity, or some other life parameter is compromised
with lower dissolved oxygen rates. Harvest is done with a standard
aquarium net. The larger netting allows immature shrimp to remain in
culture. Cultures which are not overharvested will become self
sustaining in 4 to 6 weeks. Water changes can be minimized with the
addition of 1g/l of used (or new if you have the $) activated carbon.
This brings me to another point. Our high school aquatic biology
program is not funded beyond the most basic (paper pens). We rely
upon donations and recycling everything possible. If anyone has used
activated carbon, light bulbs, trade magazines, books, retired reef
lights, hardware of any kind, or livestock, and would like to donate
it (tax purposes?) please contact me @ mr_page@hotmail.com or
rs_page@owt.com.
R. Scott Page
Aquatic Biology Instructor
Hanford High School
The Krib
Food
The Krib