Growing on brine shrimp

[Clownfish75]

Our very first discussion topic will be about growing on brine shrimp.

So the question is, how and why do you grow brine shrimp to somehting other than a few days old.

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/man ... hrimp.html

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diyfee ... rimpgr.htm

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~davidr/discus/ ... temia.html

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/fishfoo ... shrimp.php

So that gives you a few different ideas.

I would pose the following questions,

1) what to feed them

2) how to keep the culture water clean

So ill open the floor to all, please do comment about your ideas on it, what to use these grown on brine for and how you have done it.

Maybe we can get a few people to try a few different things and see how it goes, perhaps revisit the topic in a few months or provide some updates over time.

Please all do put your comments in.

Thanks

Christian

[Luis A M]

I am keeping them succesfully since several years now.
They grow in a round plastic tub,about 4´x 1.5´,with a central air line without a stone.
The tub is under a clear roof,with wide temp fluctuations.Salinity is kept at about 1.050 SG.
One tbsp of a yeast/spirulina mix is blended with some water and given every time the water clears.

[spk]

Folks,
I have a small tank, I will post dimension later today, that I can use for experimentation.
Any suggestion as to what I should be using equipment wise please let me knoe.
Thanks

[lance]

Hmmm can't remember what I was going to say.

lance

[spk]

Lance,
no worries, please post when you remember.

[William]

I grow them in a 5 gallon bucket of live phytoplankton with a light over it. The phytoplankton grows faster than the artemia can eat it, so they never need to be feed. I just add water to replace evaporation.

[spk]

William,
can you remember how you started off the culture?
what do you do about water quality?
what light do you have over it?
how often do you harvest?
Thanks

[William]

- I start the culture by hatching regular(non-decaped) eggs in a soda bottle using standard methods. I then filter out the artemia when they hatch and added them to 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of water I take from my reef tank, and 2 liters of algae. I used tet most recently, but I have used nan and iso as well, I do not believe it matters which type of algae you use.
- For light I am currently using a 13 watt home-use screw-in compact florescent lightbulb.
- I forgot to mention, I do add aeration with an open ended tube.
- I don't ever test the water quality. I assume that the live phyto grows on the waste of the artemia and keeps the water liveable.
- I harvest with a regular aquarium net as they are needed. Artemia do not reproduce very quickly. I usually end up harvesting them much faster than they reproduce. Once they are all gone, I start a new culture. Eggs are really cheap. It is much more efficient to grow them from eggs than rely on their natural reproduction.

[spk]

OK,
I have a tank sitting on the kitchen windowsill.
It is 12" x 7" x 9"
Do I need a heater?
I have an airpump with rigid ailine and not airstone.

Anything else that I need.

[Amie]

I think people put too much effort into growing out brine shrimp. If you go back and read everyone 's thread that has grown them, they are just sticking them in a container, adding air and food. Don't put a heater in with them, don't worry about water quality, top-off once in a while, and call it good. The brine shrimp that live in the Great Salt Lake are not living in optimal conditions. The salinity there is so high, that you have to dilute it to test it.

The only reason I figured out how to raise them is because I have always hated throwing away the few extra live babies that are left in hatching container that have some shells mixed in with them. So I used to just dump those 50-100 nauplii into a small plastic container, add SW to the top of the container and put a drop or two of nanno paste in with them and stir it. (no air, btw) I'd forget about them and notice a few weeks later that I had pregnant adults. I've been doing that for years now. If you do put an airline in with them, I would recommend only about 2 bubbles per second, they don't need to be tossed around. If they need air, you will see them swimming at the surface of the water to get it.

Here's an article about the brine shrimp in the Great Salt Lake and keeping a continuous culture of brine shrimp going:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/3/breeder/view?searchterm=brine%20shrimp

[Amie]

OK,
I have a tank sitting on the kitchen windowsill.
It is 12" x 7" x 9"
Do I need a heater?
I have an airpump with rigid ailine and not airstone.

Anything else that I need.

yeah, just the obvious...salt water, brine shrimp and food.

[TheChemist]

Since spring I just tossed some naupli in a 50 L square plastic container for concrete mixing (cheap) put in 50% of old SW (from water changes) and 50% FW. I just added a bit of live algae (Nano, tetra and Iso) and put the whole thing outside under a transparent roof. The black plastic containers get direct light only in the late afternoon. The water get really green in a few days and artemia grows like crazy in this. The cultures were going for a few months now no problems. I added some air, but not much. Artemia is nicely orange and all and the fish love it. I keep thousands in one container.
I just top it off with some FW here and there as I see fit and I will net out some bugs that get in there occasionally and grass after moving the lawn .

[Amie]

Excellent Idea, I think I'll try that. However, I might put a screen over it to keep the grass and leaves out. Are they in the shade? How hot does it get in your area?

[FMarini]

so what you guys are trying to do is grow the artemia to adult size? Seems like alot of wasted space, May i ask what these adult artemia offer that a standard pelletized food doesnt? Is it a snack for your fishys?
I understand there wiggling/jiggling and thats attractive to many fish, but by the time many juvenile fish are large enough to eat adult brine, they should be weaned onto prepared foods. Now if your using the adults as a vectors to antibiotic or supplementation addition (gut loading them), them maybe
Well I'll add an article from a few years back, but to me growing adult artemia is something i dont find useful
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... reeder.htm

[Clownfish75]

Frank I am kind of the same opinion, i suppose in some ways alot of people think having half grown artemia is a good thing for baby banggais, but im sure you can refute this

I think alot of books also sight live brine as a good food and conditioning diet for adult fish.

Could artemia not be a good vestor for getting certian fatty acids to a fish?

CHristian

[Amie]

I agree with you for the most part, Frank. But having live adult brine shrimp is the only way that I know of to train adult seahorses to start eating frozen brine. When they are first shipped in, they won't eat frozen. After they have made the switch, then by all means, stop raising brine shrimp.

I have found that larger adult brine shrimp are also useful in training dragonettes to eat frozen.

[PaulG]

I gave this a go with the same amount of success that I have had previously.

for he first 3-4 days everything was looking good, then over the following 3 days there were less & less bbs, to the point of after 8 days I can not find a single one.

so... what am I doing wrong?

I have a 20Gal tank, air line bubbleing in one corner about 4 bubbles per seconds, no heater, the water temp was 18'c (too cold?)
as far as feeding goes, I dropped 1 drop of Nanno IA twice, once at 3 days & again at 6 days.

Anyone, Anyone, Anyone

[Amie]

18c is a little cold, but that just means that they are going to mature at a slower rate, not die. My basement is about 18c in the winter and it takes them about 6 weeks to reach the adult stage instead of 2-3 weeks.

Can you explain this line a little better: as far as feeding goes, I dropped 1 drop of Nanno IA twice, once at 3 days & again at 6 days"

What does '1 drop of Nanno IA twice' mean? What is IA?

If you are saying that you gave a 20 gallon tank of bbs, 1 drop of Nanno paste on day 3 and day 6, you are WAY under feeding. But I'll wait to make sure that I'm interpretting that correctly.

[PaulG]

Hi Amie,

IA... Gresham's best Instant Algae

I thought I would of been overfeeding, considering the water still had a slight green tinge to it.


I don't think your interpreting it incorrectly.

'1 drop of Nanno IA twice'

I gave teh tank 1 drop of IA at 3 days & at 6 days. 2 drops in 6 days, 1 drop at 3 day interval twice.

Thanks
PaulG

(going slightly off topic here, I picked up a pair of red lines a couple of weeks back & 1 molted last night.... and it has eggs allready so I'm going to torture myself for another 5 months )

[Amie]

Paul,

A 'tinge' of green, isn't enough. Tell me if this helps any. Here are 2 squares. The first square is the color of the water just after you feed them. The second square is the color of the water when they need to be fed again. (Try and pretend that these squares are opaque.)

just fed.jpg

need food.jpg

If these were actually pictures of the water, you wouldn't be able to see through the tank, from one side to the other, after feeding them using the first square as a guide. When they are running out of food, the water is still definitely green, but you can see clearly to the other side of the tank. If I were to make a guess, I would say that I add anywhere from 1/2 - 1 ml Nanno IA per gallon of water. So for a 20 gallon tank, you need to add about 10-20 ml of IA. If you were to count the drops, that would somewhere around 200-400 drops. The good news is, you only need to do that about once every 7-10 days.


---
Great news about the shrimp..good luck!

[PaulG]

Thanks Amie,

That does help, I have been underfeedign them them

I need to hatch out a LOT more bbs so I'll through some in teh tank & try again.


Thanks
PaulG

[lance]

amie great post thanks

lance

[Amie]

No problem, hope it helps.

[HansStreek]

Why grow artemia?

I hope to get a steady supply of high quality semi natural food that can be used alot and often without the risc of getting poor water quality. Since breeding fish is at the most a hobby for me it would be great if I could feed young fish and breeding pairs only twice per day and still give them enough food. And I find that difficult with standard foods.

In the long run I hope to come up with some kind of continious feeding of my reef tank... and that might be rotifers, pods, artemia and other zooplankton.

At the moment I try to breed the artemia in a box with aprox 50 liters of old water from my main tank. The box is placed on my balkony so it gets plenty of sunlight, quite alot of rain. I have used Phytofeast live to feed them, but only once every two weeks. No heating, no air, no filter and no circulation. And there are lots of adult artemia in there right now.... but not so many young ones..

[PaulG]

Amie,

The 'color swatches' you posted... is that looking side (looking through the longest side) on or end on( looking through the shortest side)?

I wonder if a secci disk would help with this?


I have pretty much teh same result as before.... 99% of the bbs have died. I could only find 1 still alive after combing the tank for a minute.