Brine Shrimp (Sea Monkeys)

[Twitterbait]

Ok, now brine shrimp are common enough but i have seen about 10 different ways to culture them so lets hear your processes for large and small volumes (cause the process differs if you need a lot or a little).

[rayjay]

The basics of what I do are on my website. The only real difference is that I now use 26g brute containers for growing them in, and I'm growing nanochloropsis for the food for the first two weeks of growth.
RAISING BRINE SHRIMP TO ADULT, DENSE CULTURES

For the most complete information on brine shrimp, go to the United Nations web site on live foods for aquaculture. While they have many live foods on this site, the artemia, or brine shrimp, are down in section 4.0 Just browse through and read the parts that interest you. For me, the whole section on brine is interesting, but others may find the sections on micro algae, or rotifers, or zooplankton of more interest.
CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO SECTION 4.0 FOR ARTEMIA

[Twitterbait]

nice links, thanks

[Spanky]

I only feed bs for a few days, so I use the inverted 2L coke bottle things. I would rather grow more smaller quanties at more times, than one big quantity. That way I have the size and age I need. I de-cap them all before I hatch.
I try to keep the specific gravity within .005 of what I'm feeding them to and have not noticed a reduction in hatch.

[Twitterbait]

how do you decapsulate them?

[rayjay]

There are a few similar ways to decap, but I prefer the simplest of methods myself.
I put a tablespoon of cysts in an inverted 2 litre pop bottle with about 2/3 litre of tap water and let soak for about 1/2 hour. Then I aerate the mix for another 1/2 to 3/4 hour at which point I add one cup of plain bleach. Continue aerating for 4 1/2 minutes and immediately rinse through a suitable net for a while, using a dechlorinator at the end to be sure you have all the bleach neutralized. If you don't have a declorinator, keep rinsing with tap water until you are absolutly sure there is no more bleach that will kill the cysts before they hatch.
You can store some cysts for a few days in a fridge, or hatch them all out at once, or if you are industrious, you can go through a proceedure of salting them to get them to last for up to a couple of months. (I'm too lazy)
I put the whole teaspoon in a clean inverted 2 litre pop bottle with salt water made up to 1.020 using Crystal Plus water softener salt, and buffer it with baking soda (1/4 teaspoon per litre). Aerate for 1 1/2 to 2 days, let settle and siphon the free swimming nauplii through a suitable net, to use as needed. I replace the water the just siphoned nauplii come from, back into the 2 litre container and let sit again for a bit, siphoning off again, the free swimming nauplii. I keep repeating this process until there are no free swimming nauplii left.
I use this separation method to avoid as much as possible, any waste material from the hatching getting into the growout container, (a five gallon water bottle, inverted with the bottom cut out.) because even with the light about the container, most of the nauplii settle out with all the garbage. By repeating the above process, it assures me of getting just swimming nauplii out for the most part. The more of that waste material getting into the growout tank, the sooner you have to do a water change in the grow out container.
If I do it right, I can get through the first week with no water changes, using live nano for food. Worst case is to do a water change the next day if I get too much waste due to haste, into the growout container. That usually means more water changes every few days because at this point it's hard to remove all the waste causing the problems. If you don't change soon enough, the culture crashes, or at best, has drastic drop out of the culture.
If you haven't realized by now, grow out of brine shrimp in dense cultures is a lot of work and fraught with frequent crashes until you get the "feel" for the whole process. Even then, crashes will still happen occasionally.

[Twitterbait]

I had heard it involved bleach but i was not sure how it was done without killing the cysts... it is very important to take the extra step because it avoids the danger of your babies choking on a hard cysts shell.

[Spanky]

Ryan, in a nut shell

You want to hydrate the shell - that's why you soak them first.

Have your rinse water ready first with either hypo, Prime, Amquel, whatever.

Take the water you are going to use to de-cap the eggs and put it in the frig/freezer, or add ice, whatever to make it cold.

Take the amount of hydrated eggs you want to use, put them in the cold water and add a glug of clorox.

Shake it up and keep shakiing until the eggs turn orange.

Immediately dump them in a strainer and run water over them, rinse good, then pour the hypo/amquel/prime water over them.

Dump them in whatever you are using to hatch them.

[cdemeritt]

add a glug of clorox

A glug? That a new scientific measurement? Lol. But if it works, it works.

[VWD]

I also need to know what a glug is, a capful ?

[cdemeritt]

I guess it is a lot like most of my grandmothers recipes, no real measerments, a dash of this, a pinch of that, a smidge of something else. Whenever I pour clorox, the bottle does make a gluging sound. I would assume it isn't that critcal, and the amount that comes out of the bottle during one glug sound. Or about if memory is correct about 1/4-1/3 cup.

[VWD]

I guess, I need to try it, Do they hatch faster this way,

[Twitterbait]

A glug is where you dump the jug of bleach for one moment (1/4th to 1/3 of a cup)

decapsulating the eggs removes the hard shell that some fish will sometimes try and eat and then choke on.

[VWD]

LOL, Ryan, 1/4 to 1/3 rd,

[zero186]

i have keep it vary simple but it seems to work for me. i have a small 1L jar thing that i hatch them in but a 2L bottle would work better and keep more off the bottom. but i keep a growing tank right beside it and i just use a net and get the ones i need to ones that are to small just go right on through. i just feed my brine which is not really important but i am trying to get large ones with SDMP is a food that seems to work for me and i can use it in my tank as well so it all works out.

but i am still not really clear on what you guys mean by decapsulating them.