Just because I like to make trouble
Here's my side of the coin...
I started decapping and hatching
baby brine for my baby seahorses last year. I didn't want to waste the leftovers, so when I had leftovers or when I did water changes, I threw the surplus into some buckets on my back porch. Nasty old tank water makes GREAT greenwater (albeit not a pure culture but it's a nice soupy mess that fattens brine up). My culture has been growing since last August. I have not added any new brine since last December, at which time I brought one bucket indoors in case the bad weather killed off the others. My culture froze over at least 4 times over the Atlanta winter, and has evaporated to the point where I thought nothing would live, but after a good rain, it "wakes up" all over again.
My culture is an old Rubbermaid tub, and a couple of salt buckets. The rubbermaid tub produces the most brine (why, I'll never know) but I just keep thinning the culture by using the brine, and moving some to other buckets. My cultures have no heat or cooling, no aeration, no nothing. They seem to thrive on sunshine, rain, the wind and my neglect. Once in a while I skim the dead junebugs out of the top (they stink!) but I left the leaves in the bottom of the bucket, that landed there in the fall.
As for gut-loading...well you can gut load them in greenwater OR if you want something more, when you collect them from the culture, bubble them for 12 hours or so in Selco or whatever you want to gut-load them on (Selco will foul an entire culture, so only gut-load by the portion), or you can use Phytoplankton or whatever.... Again, gut load them 12 hours before feeding, in a jar or bubbler with an airline.
No, not everybody wants a bucket of artemia on their back step, but it's not hard to do if you want to.
Jenn
