Brine Shrimp Breeding

[Random Aquarist]

Hey, I used to be interested in breeding plankton, but now I'm looking into brine shrimp. I think I'll raise them in a plastic tub and hatch them in my black, circular, hatcher-thingy. I'll collect the eggs in the raising/breeding tub, hatch the naplii, move them back to my raising/breeding tub, and collect them when they're at any age. I'll dump them in my refugium or near a powerhead when I'm ready to feed them to my reef. Would they eat any macroalgae I might have in my refugium? I haven't even set up my tank, so this is all planning in advance.

 

[Samala]

They'll eat microalgae and other things they can sift from the water, not macroalgae.

I was under the impression that BS produce eggs only in stressful environments. I seem to remember my old seamonkey colony producing live young when the conditions were good. Something to look into. You may not need to hatch eggs at all once the culture is going.

>Sarah

 

[Random Aquarist]

Yeah, I just remembered that I'd need to drain the tank if I wanted eggs. I'll go back to Google to see if BS produce live young. If they do, I can make use of all those big buckets I have that used to hold mollasses for cattle. Heck, I can make an easy buck by going into somewhat large-scale BS breeding.

 

[rodd1rj]

Can you throw in live BS in the sump and have them continualy reproduce, with the addition microalgae.

 

[Random Aquarist]

Whoa, BS do reproduce live young. I guess I can maintain at least one bucket of brine shrimp by letting algae grow in it and giving it water from my reef's water changes. Sweet. BTW, when I said I was going to put BS in my refugium, I meant adding them there so they can reproduce there and/or be released into the tank. I'll try putting this thread on some paper so I can remember this. Will corals eat BS and BBS?

 

[daytonians]

As far as putting them in your refugium. I tried this once. Brine Shrimp are terrible swimmers, and were flushed out of the refugium in a matter of minutes.

You may want to look into those continuous hack and feed units. Never tried one, but looks interesting.

 

[Fredfish]

There is a member here, rayjay, who raises brine shrimp regularly.

Here is a link to the part of his web page on raising them.

Fred

 

[Random Aquarist]

Here's my idea:

Okay, I'll move backwards. The tub on the right will grow algae or be where I dispense food. The middle is where I'll hold a heater and some bioballs. The left tub is where the brine shrimp will live. There may be more than one BS tub. It will all be circulated by a pump. I will install valves into the buckets so I can change water easily. I'll also add seives to the BS bucket(s). Will this work?

 

[Random Aquarist]

I just thought up an idea. Maybe I can save money on this BS raiser by making slightly more BS and trading them to my LFS for Spirulina.

 

[rayjay]

First of all, before you go building a complex set up like you propose, why not be sure you want to go to all the trouble growing brine shrimp?
Growing low density is no problem and doesn't need anything more than appropriately size food (greenwater) that you can put a few in and leave alone for about 3-4 weeks.
However for more meaningful numbers you need to culture in higher densities, and the more dense the culture, the more work involved.
Water changes will need to be done to handle decaying feces, decaying dead brine shrimp, and decaying food that has settled out.
Based on my years of experience and all my trials and tribulations, I don't believe your projected set up will work for denser cultures.
For the best information available on Artemia go to the United Nations site on live foods for aquaculture and scroll down to Artemia.
While there is more info there than you might want, you could pay particular attention to the section on tank grown brine,(I think it's section 4.4) realizing that this is on a large scale, but the principles are still the same.
CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO SECTION 4.0

 

[Random Aquarist]

Perhaps this would work:

Here is what the Bio-Wheel would like. Kinda like a water wheel.

By mechanical filtration, I mean filter pads. Food dispersal would be a fine mesh bag that would hold dissolving Spirulina flakes. Heaters would be in the food dispersal area as well.

Also, I could switch the mechanical filtration and the Bio-Wheel, meaning the Bio-Wheel would come after the mechanical filtration.

 

[rayjay]

Brine shrimp can't swim against a flow, so pumping water necessitates having a means to prevent the brine from pumping through your system.
The system has to have a means to have filtration in place that allows the detritus to pass through and the brine not pass through, but still not have the brine be swept up against the filter from water flow.
It entails using multiple size filters, one at a time according to the size of the brine at the moment, with larger filter openings as the brine grow. Because the filters are so close to the size of allowing brine through, they don't allow for much of the detritus to pass through, thus blocking the filter so that it needs constant cleaning, sometimes several times a day. (does that spell flood when you are not around?)
If you think about it, very few people grow brine shrimp to adult and especially in meaningful quantities.
First, it's a lot of work, and second, you can buy them locally very cheap most times, or you can buy from Livebrineshrimp.com and have them shipped to you.
If you still want to grow them, do it simple untill you learn your way and find some of the pitfalls of doing so.
Then you can design your system, keeping in mind that even commercial producers have not found a simplified setup to grow the brine shrimp. They are constantly changing filter sizes too.
Good luck!

 

[Random Aquarist]

Well, I already have a bunch of BS eggs and a couple hatching disks, so I think I'll just soak the nauplii in some vitamin enriched water before I feed. Any problems with that?

 

[rayjay]

I would suggest that you feed the nauplii to your tank as soon as they hatch out when the egg sack hasn't started to become consumed. That's when they are the most nutritious.
As for "soaking" them in vitamins, they won't absorb any liquid as such, but if the vitamin is a suspension like Selco/Selcon, or, is a fine powder form, then after they develop to the second Instar stage, they can feed on it to make them gut loaded. Unfortunately at that stage it takes about 24 hours to gut load and it is approximately 24 hours AFTER hatchout that they develop into the Instar II stage.That is why I suggested feeding them to the tank as soon as they hatch out
I don't know if you grow greenwater (micro algae) at all, but if so, why not try your hand at growout but putting some of the hatched nauplii in a gallon of salt water greenwater and do some experimenting to see just what it takes. (I find nanochloropsis the easiest) If you succeed at low density cultures, just try each time with a little more dense culture and see what problems arise and figure out what can be done to solve it.
Brine shrimp will hatch and grow in a wide range of specific gravity, and I used to do it at my tanks s.g. of 1.026. Now, I use 1.019-20 and that works fine for me, however Live Brine Shrimp.com told me they use 1.015.
In the Great Salt Lake they live in water so salty that nothing else can live, therefore no competition for food and no predators living in the lake.

 

[Random Aquarist]

Yes, I was just thinking of greenwater. I have a water trough that works as a goldfish pond. It's so full of plants. The hornwort is several inches thick! Anyway, do you think I could use that greenwater and add salt? Should I make salt water and leave it in the sun for algae to grow in it?

 

[rayjay]

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that one. There are some like Nannochloropsis that grow in both salt water and fresh water, but not knowing what you have, that is impossible to say.
I would suggest first, taking a sterilized container and add one half full of your green water. Then add some already mixed salt water (1.026-1.030) equal to about 1/3 of the volume of green water, to that green water, add a little liquid fertilizer, put under a light (I use spot lights in clamp on light fixtures), and aerate.
If the culture doesn't crash, add another similar amount of salt water and pray.
If the culture grows, keep adding salt water, until the specific gravity reaches 1.019-1.020. Put in a larger container as it grows and as you increase the salt water added, also add a very little more fertilizer.
If you reach that 1.019 s.g., and if it is still growing, just add salt water already at 1.019 about every two days. When you have as large a container going as you want to use, split the culture in two, top up with salt water 1.019, add more fertilizer, and keep it going.
If that doesn't work, try to find a supplier of LIVE nannochloropsis, buy the smallest amount they sell, and use that to start your culture.
Once you have the phyto under control with at least two and preferably more containers growing it, you can start your brine culture now and use the green water for feeding them.