What You Need to Set Up a Brine Shrimp Egg Hatchery

Although commercial brine shrimp hatcheries are available in pet stores and specialty shops, any hobbyist can create his own hatchery as long as he knows the basic equipment needed, along with their functions. Just like any other organism, brine shrimps can thrive as long as their environment fit their needs.

  1. Characteristics

    • Brine shrimp, or "Artemia," grows to over a centimeter in adulthood. It is a primary food source for aquarium-, aquaculture- and controlled-media grown- crustaceans and fish. Sold in brown powdery embryonic form, this is actually composed of a large number of encapsulated eggs which can remain metabolically dormant for a long time. Belonging to an earlier crustacean order despite its resemblance to shrimps, shrimp brine derives its colors from its phytoplankton diet.

    Factors for Growth and Survival

    • Brine shrimps survive in high-salt water with some algal and bacterial species. It can withstand radical temperature changes and has short life spans. Alkaline water pH, minimal light plus optimal oxygen levels are required for it to attain maximum development. In a hatchery environment, growing brine shrimp can feed on a tank water and baker's yeast milky solution.

    Basic Hatchery Assembly

    • Containers that can perfectly serve as hatcheries are two-liter soda bottles, with their tops sawn off. Fill the bottle with tap water. Diffuse a pinch of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and around 20 grams of salt with no iodine into the water. Allow the brine shrimp cysts to culture in the container.

    Advanced Hatchery Assembly

    • You can also create a more complicated hatchery for better spawning and long term use. To do this, take a capped two-liter soda bottle with its bottom sawn off and invert the bottle into a squat stand, such as a jar predrilled with adjacent holes near the bottom. Make sure that the bottle hangs inverted into the jar two inches from the jar base.

      Prepare an airline tee, an aquarium hose and an inline connector. Connect the two ends of the tee to two lengths of hose leading outside the opposite predrilled jar holes. Connect an airline valve to one end.

      Through one end of another inline connector, link a hose, another air valve (shut-off positive valve), a check valve, and another airline. Connect the end of this airline to an air pump, and conjoin the jar airline to this air pump setup. Switch the air on at a suitable level, fill the bottle with a liter of water, and dissolve a tablespoon of salt and a little baking soda into it. Your hatchery is ready for about ¼ tablespoon of shrimp brine powder.

    Harvesting and Other Considerations

    • Adjust lighting to ambient temperature, as lighting raises temperature. Harvesting within 20 to 24 hours requires lights to be shut off. Stop the air flow just before the naupalii (brine shrimp larva) enter the air valve. Use brine shrimp strainers, either sock-or net-type, to harvest.