All About Breeding Brine Shrimp
Breeding brine shrimp is a useful and fun hobby. It's very easy to set up a small facility to breed these shrimp. The use of these shrimp is mainly to feed other fish in aquariums and since many people own fish it can be worth starting up a small business based on breeding and selling brine shrimp as a food source for other aquarium fish. It is even possible to sell them to laboratories and schools, so breeding these shrimp can be a regular source of income.
Life Cycle and Amazing Properties
The brine shrimp has an amazing life cycle and some fascinating properties. Shrimp eggs are inactive and can remain in total stasis for up to two years if they are in oxygen-free conditions. They can survive a vast range of temperatures from sub zero to even boiling. But when they are placed in salt water, the eggs will hatch within a few hours, regardless of the previous conditions they went through. This makes these shrimp with short life spans perfect for scientific research and they are used even in high school biology labs.
Setting Up the Breeding Facility
The main things needed to start up a breeding facility are an aquarium, salt water and the shrimp eggs. It can't get any simpler than this, but there are a few complications to understand before one embarks upon this project. The shrimp like wide-flat containers as opposed to tall-thin ones. This is probably due to the way sunlight will disperse more in the first kind of aquarium and keep the water warm for them. Speaking of sunlight, do not keep the aquarium in direct sunlight as this will probably cause the water to boil! It's better to keep them in a sunny room but out of the sun, or a garden shed. Some amount of sunlight is needed to promote the growth of the algae that the shrimp feed on.
Salt water will be needed as these shrimp are at home in briny water. Do not use tap water. Fill another aquarium with distilled water that has been boiled and left to cool. Alternatively, it is possible to de-chlorinate tap water using a solution that can be bought in many pet stores. But it is still a good idea to boil and let this water to cool for several hours. Use ocean salt that can be bought in pet shops and add this to the water in the other tank that will not contain the shrimp. The salt level can be checked using a hydrometer (also available in pet shops). There is a common high school science class experiment that checks to see what level of salt brine shrimp are content in the most and it seems to be about 1.023 on the hydrometer. This is where most of the eggs will tend to hatch. It's best to let the container where the salt water is made stand overnight to let insoluble materials drip to the bottom as these are not wanted in the container with the shrimp.
Hatching the Clutch
The shrimp eggs should be stored in a cool, dry place. Remember that they are very sturdy and can last for years if treated correctly. Transfer the salt water from the other container into the fresh one that will house the shrimp making sure that the insoluble materials on the bottom of the container do not transfer with the salt water. Use a sieve if necessary. A small spoon or paper matchbook can be used to add shrimp eggs to the aquarium. One scoop of a spoonful of eggs will hatch a surprisingly large amount of shrimp within 24-48 hours at a temperature of 70F (26C). An air pump should be used to circulate the water for 24 hours. When aeration is finished, the shrimp should be fed the next day after the 24 hour period.
Feeding the Children
To grow large adult brine shrimp, the water needs to be continually aerated with very fine bubbles. There are machines that will do this. The shrimp need to be fed as often as necessary to keep the water slightly cloudy. There are algae formulas available to do this found in pet shops. When the shrimp start to get bigger, they can be transferred to a larger aquarium and fed only once or twice a week while the smaller aquarium can be continually used as a hatchery.
Breeding brine shrimp can be a fun and lucrative hobby for anyone!