METHOD #3: ANOTHER SIMPLE WAY TO RAISE BRINE SHRIMP TO MATURITY by R. Scott
Page, Aquatic Biology Instructor, Hanford High School, Richland, WA.

I struggled with BS culture for a very long time. I now have a protocol
which works fantastic. My 12 - 18 year old students can make it work the
first try.

BS are hatched (in normal fashion) in inverted 2 liter bottles and harvested
after 48 hours. They are separated from empty cysts and moved to a growout
aquarium. I know that many advocate conical bottoms for a growout aquarium,
but we have found that we do not need them if we hatch the nauplii first and
then transfer them. For growout aquariums, we use 28 5-gallon aquariums, a
30 gallon garbage can, a 25 gallon "muck bucket", two 20 gallon aquariums,
and various plastic "sweater boxes" or storage boxes. They all work fine. We
have also experimented with various substrates, but find that no substrate
works best...except we add a bit of used activated carbon each week (about
1g/l).

First, I use synthetic sea salt. Other (homemade) mixes have not worked for
me beyond the first week. In my case I reuse the water which I remove from
the marine aquarium in my classroom. The water is about 3.5% salinity with a
specific gravity of about 1.026. This is heavily aerated for the first week,
moderately aerated the second week, and gently aerated then after.

Twice a day we mix up (scale to your needs) 1 tbs. spirulina powder
(expensive but worth it) in 1.5 liter of pure water. This is blended for 4 -
5 minutes. The suspension of spirulina is allowed to settle for the next 5
to 10 minutes. As it settles the liquid suspension forms on the bottom and a
foam layer on top. The suspension is poured through a brine shrimp net to
remove larger particles and most of the foam. This liquid is then added to
the BS aquarium at a rate of about 10 - 50 cc per 20 liters - but only in
aquariums which have cleared out the previous feeding and resultant
bacterial cloud from the water. The amount depends upon the feeding rate of
that particular aquarium.

It is surprising that when we measured the dissolved oxygen (DO) tolerance -
we have found shrimp surviving DO concentrations below 1 mg/l. Which brings
me to color. If the DO is low over a sustained period of time - say a 5 to 7
days, you will notice the shrimp changing from a green to reddish. This is
reportedly caused by development of an oxygen carrying pigment - hemoglobin
or similar pigment. Synthesis of a substance (any substance) is
metabolically costly so undoubtedly the nutrient value, growth rate,
fecundicity, or some other life parameter is compromised with lower
dissolved oxygen rates.

Harvest is done with a standard aquarium net. The larger netting allows
immature shrimp to remain in culture. Cultures which are not overharvested
will become self sustaining in 4 to 6 weeks. Water changes can be minimized
with the addition of 1g/l of used (or new if you have the $) activated
carbon.