Brine Shrimp/Artemia Hatching and Raising to Adulthood

You won't be able to raise any artemia to adulthood unless you feed em'

What green water species of algae are you using for your culture? nannocloropsis? Isocloropsis? What are you going to be using once they grow up a bit more? Have you researched brine shrimp diets? What salinity are you using? Do you have a larger black plastic rearing tub to raise them to adulthood? Could you post pics of your setup?

Sounds like your method of culturing green water is way off. Why don't you build a properly suited phytoplankton setup and culture only one species of alga? Nannocloropsis sp. seems to do the best for culturing and feeding livestock. Never heard of egg yolk. I would think that it would break down and cause ammonia to spike too bad. Usually, you would feed live foods to keep the water quality from deteriorating. Enriched live rotifers is usually a good choice to feed artemia after day 3. (I'm pretty sure.) I suggest reading a good aquaculturing book. It should have all the info you are looking for in there. People have done it before, you don't have to re-discover and learn everything on your own again. Once you've had some successful batches, then figure out new ways to do it.

Yeah man, Aquaculture is awesome. I have a deep passion for aquaculture, permaculture and hydroponics. Anything from growing your own phyto and brine to commercial grade shrimp and salmon. I find it all fascinating. In fact, I'm going to go to school for Marine Biology next year when my wife graduates college.

This is a really good site to get information on, I agree. We have a lot of different opinions, but we all mean well and you have to decide what is right for you.

There are a lot of good aquaculture books that should be available at your local library. There are also some good books on breeding clownfish and raising fry that cover growing phyto, rotifers and brine in pretty good detail. There are also books out there that discuss in detail how to culture your own live foods for aquariums. If you want, I'll see if I can round you up some links. But, I'm not gona invest my time unless you want to read them.

Can you perhaps post any pics of your setup so that we can see what exactly you are talking about? Maybe I can give you a few more pointers.

Take a cardboard box with some kind of lid and cut everything to fit and tape it all back together. Use a paste glue to stick aluminum foil all inside the box and even the top of the lid. Buy two lamp socket kits and two 10w or 23 watt CFL bulbs and lower them half way into the box. Buy some soda pop and drink/empty the bottles, wash them out and place them in the box to see where they will fit. You must have an air pump, and a 3 gang valve split so you can adjust the amount of air flow in each bottle... Drill a hole slightly smaller than the air line tubing in the top of the cap of the bottle, and drill a smaller hole for air to escape beside it. Thread your air line tube down through the cap and all the way to the bottom of the bottle. Make sure your air pump is either above your bottles, or if below your bottles - inside the box, put a check valve on the main line. This keeps your pump from siphoning water into the air pump when turned off. Mix up your six liters of saltwater with a salinity of 1.019 or a little less and add it to your bottles. Keep your lights on 16hrs a day and off 8 hours a day. Add your starter culture (from Florida Aqua Farms) of nannocloropsis to each bottle. Add 3ml of miracle grow 10-10-10 fertilizer and 3ml of Kents Essential Elements. Stir it all together/lightly shake. It takes about 2 weeks for your starter culture to get dark enough to feed. Take out only half of the bottle at a time and top off with saltwater each time. After each parting, add 3ml of miracle grow and 3ml of kents essentials. It should only take about one week to get all the bottles dark enough to part again. Experience goes a long way - and your methods will change a bit over time, but that is the basics of it.

As for rotifers and brine - well, you basically know how to do that already. I hatched brine on the same shelves as my phyto, and it did fine. Just read a few good books and keep experimenting with it and you will get it right.

By the way, I'm just curious,... how old are yah, kid?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrwes008 

Anything like aquaculture fascinates me. I have a freshwater tropical fish tank and am learning how to master fish-keeping. I'm no expert by any means but my nature is to do it well, and learn as i go along. I'm not simply the type to have a goldfish in a bowl or a tropical freshwater tank with a bunch of neon tetras in it. The responsibility that's involved in fish-keeping is amazing to me, or indeed, aquaculture in general. The fact you re totally in control of their environment is a great responsibility, Amazing that you actually get it. maybe more so than any other animal. As said though i have a GREAT deal to learn. The idea behind raising brine shrimp was to feed to my fish. Obviously ATM I'm feeding them shop bought stuff. It is my goal to at least supplement that diet with a natural live food source that I've raised and therefore know exactly whats being fed to my fish.

 

I will most definitely read and research any information you provide me, Great, I'll get around to it this afternoon. There are some good books on amazon for cheap. and experiment with those methods to find what works best for me. As I've said before there is much info on the net but I'm finding that maybe 5% (if that) is worth my laptops battery. I feel the same way. So when i read information that comes from someone who obviously has an interest and knowledge in what they're talking about i read with pleasure. The sheer fact that they're sharing their knowledge as well as time is something i don't take lightly. The whole process of aquaculture, at the moment, seems like another language but one i am desperate nay eager to learn. Great! It may even turn out to be a career changer. It was for me.  It adds another dimension to my already eager passion for marine and tropical aquariums. The information you provide with regards to the culturing i am desperate to try and experiment with.

 

My setup for my brine shrimp is almost caveman like compared to that. I will try and provide pictures asap but for the brine shrimp setup i basically have a 20 ltr tank, with a heater. An in-tank hatchery which hold maybe 250ml. i run my air supply into my 'in tank' hatchery and bubble away for about 24hrs, then transfer the newly hatched brine shrimp into the rearing tank and air supply that tank. That's as far as I've got. The hatching seems easy the raising not so. Sounds like a start.

 

I'm 33 and trust me i reckon i'm learning more in my thirtys that the first 30 years of my life, well! You get what i mean. Yes, yes I do.

 

 

 

 

So, I'm going to go and find some links to books for you that I feel is applicable to your situation and what you want to do. :D

By the way, what salinity are you using, and are you using a refractometer to measure it?

This right here is a great book to start out with. There is step by step instructions in both freshwater and saltwater live food culturing. The book is only $26, and it's worth it's weight in gold for what you are trying to accomplish. The best thing is that it's actually recently been published (2008, so it has all updated information in it. http://www.amazon.com/Culturing-Live-Foods-Step---Step/dp/0793806550/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316551535&sr=1-1 Culturing Live Foods: A Step-by-Step Guide for Culturing One's Own Food for the Home Aquarium by Michael Hellwig

This book I have right here also discusses culturing phytoplankton and rotifers, but sparsely discusses brine shrimp in any detail. It's mainly for aquaculturing marine fishes, but the same basic concepts also apply. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Illustrated-Breeders-Marine-Aquarium/dp/1890087718/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316551703&sr=1-2 Complete Illustrated Breader's Guide To Marine Aquarium Fishes by Wittenrich

Both of those books are pretty affordable and worth every penny for your application. The second book will teach you something more about breeding and rearing live fishes, just incase you want to get into the challenge of breeding clownfish. There is also one more book I recommend for someone who wants to breed clowns - but that is neither here nor there at the moment. The first book explains in quite good detail about how to raise mysis shrimp to adulthood... so it may greatly benefit you to buy it first.

Yes, a refractometer measures salinity, but only more accurately then a hydrometer. I have no idea what the salinity would end up being by mixing 10 grams of sea salt to one liter of water.

Maybe you would have better success by switching to a marine salt mix? Such as Instant Ocean, Red Sea, Reef Crystals, Seachem reef salt, or even Tropic Marin? Mix your saltwater with a powerhead for 24 hours to a salinity of 1.017-1.019 and have the saltwater ready to use before you start hatching brine.

I'm assuming that you want to breed shrimp for a saltwater aquarium, yes?

Heck yeah, and a whole lot easier to breed and feed too... There's a lot of different types of worms and beetles that you could grow. It's in that first book that I put up there. Brine shrimp probably just isn't the best way to go to feed freshwater fish. 

You sure you weren't seeing ghost shrimp for sale? lol.

I love a challenge as well.

Thanks for starting the thread, I hope that someone else has learned something from it too. I hope you have plenty of success in the future...