Brine Shrimp
Text & Images by Robbie Kirkup, Proprietor,  Aquatic Fanatic
Click on images for bigger view

Brine shrimps are one of the best, most nutritious foods available. And just about every aquatic dealer will sell frozen and live adult brine shrimp. It was not always that way, I can remember brine shrimp (Artemia) eggs, were stocked by only a few shops and frozen 100 gram packets were offered by ‘Gamma Foods’ my nearest stockist was a 20 mile round trip. Yorkshire Brine Shrimp Co. started up in the 1980s and looked like they were on to a winner, turning light brown shrimp eggs into gold! But it was not as easy as at looked, but the foundations had begun in supplying live adult as well as newly hatched shrimp to we hobbyists.
By the 1990s there was a lot more frozen on offer as over seas shipping of pet foods became more competitive.
I myself import from the U.S.A. frozen adult brine shrimp for around $10 per kilo, a price that has little changed today (I predict this will come down by half when the Russians and Chinese get their export of frozen shrimps organised.) But what used to fluctuate was the price of the eggs, a cartel existed among the harvesters at the Salt Lakes, and like OPEC they would get together to discuss price and harvest quotas.
 
Brine Shrimp Products
I can remember brine shrimp eggs being four times the price they are now, £80 per one pound tin - trade, I was sending my imported eggs all over the country, coz at this time the pet shops had stopped purchase and supply. They were still worth every penny then, and more so now! Yorkshire Brine Shrimp Co. could not produce the eggs in the quantity needed and the price they sold the eggs for, was more expensive than from the U.S.A. though the postage was cheaper. These were difficult times for the specialist breeders, they either paid the price or used other more dangerous forms of live food, but that was back in the late 80s early 90s, I had often asked the aquatic press media “there must be Artemia in Eastern Europe/Asia maybe the Dead Sea” or something similar and cheap we can use. 
 Along came the personnel computer the internet and the end (for the time being) of the Soviet Union, with free trade between Eastern Europe Asia & China. And if that does not work for you, hobbyists in other countries that you can talk & deal direct with. I can now choose between ten different harvests of eggs, gone are the expensive Salt Lake eggs, I am currently using eggs from Siberia. An English manufacturer ‘Hobby’, markets sets of sieve nets, spirulina liquid & powder foods for feeding and growing brine shrimp and can also be used to feed fry and corals. Life is easier for the fish breeder, though I still have fond memories of collecting live foods, daphnia, Cyclops, mosquito larvae and bloodworm by the gallon, and by doing this I can appreciate how spectacular and attractive Dragon Fly’s are, just a pity they were trapped in my fish house with a belly full of baby fish!
No Monkey business Hatchery! Christmas time will no doubt see a rise in the advertising of sea monkey kits, these are basically a plastic tank, half a gram of Artemia eggs, some table salt, gravel & a plastic plant and if the child (who the kits are targeted at) is lucky, a magnifying glass. With out heat, light, filtration and proper feed, the child that grows these ‘monkeys’ to adult size ‘10mm’ will surely make an outstanding aquarist! Virtually every fish breeder uses newly hatched brine shrimp (nauplii of Artemia) as a food for fry.
Many egg laying as well as livebearer fry can eat them as a first food, and even small fry can eat them after a few days on.
Essentially, the aquarist hatches these eggs by incubating them in a salt solution (6-8 tablespoonfuls per gallon 23 grams per litre; I am close to the beach so I use sea water) If you are near the sea, use seawater, in spring and summer this tends to hold its own infusorians for growing the shrimp. A number of methods have been described. One method is to hatch the eggs in a tray, using a light to attract the newly hatched shrimp, to a hole cut in the lid. Another old favourite was to use glass milk bottles with demijohn corks sealing the bottles, this way the same amount of air, supplies as many bottles as you wish.
'V' Brine Shrimp Hatcher
I used to manufacture and sell purpose built hatch tanks, basically a 12” x !0” x 4” aquarium, the two ends are cut a little longer so they form a V!  to the base of the V add a length of air curtain on a L connector (4” long) air curtain can be ordinary silicone airline with a number of holes punched thru, this is siliconed to the base with a length of airline running to the air supply, light is positioned over the hatchery and when the air is turned off, the solution will settle and the newly hatched shrimp can be siphoned of from the salt solution.
Bottle Hatcher
A popular variation today is to use inverted clear plastic pop bottles (2 or 1 litre), from which the bottom has been cut. An air stone is glued into a hole drilled in the cap and connected to airline running to the air supply is used to aerate the solution.
The inverted bottle can be held in some sort of frame, or use some string and suspend.
A useful advance in hatching brine shrimp, especially those of lower grade, is dechlorination, in which the "shells" of the eggs are removed before hatching. Again, methods vary, but the one described here is used by a number of aquarists.
A cup of cool water is placed in an inverted soda bottle hatchery (as described above) and one teaspoonful of brine shrimp eggs is added. This is allowed to bubble gently for about an hour. One cup of concentrated bleach (such as Chlorox) is added and the solution bubbled vigorously for 6 minutes. During this time the suspension of eggs will turn from brown to orange. The suspension of eggs is then run off the hatchery and strained through an ordinary white handkerchief.
The eggs are rinsed thoroughly with cool water, and then returned to the hatchery, in which the salt solution for hatching has replaced the bleach solution. This suspension is bubbled at a moderate rate. The eggs will hatch after 24-36 hours, depending on temperature. Temperatures of 72 to 80 °F are suitable. The newly hatched shrimps are collected by straining through a sieve. The advantage of this method is that very high hatch rates are almost always achieved, even with brine shrimp eggs that give only modest hatches without dechlorination.
If kept a little longer in the bleach solution, then rinsed the shrimp embryo can be fed directly to the fry, as if it were granular food!
Off course there are purpose made brine shrimp nets, fine muslin strainers of different sizes for sorting out various sizes of Artemia, as well as vinegar eels, Cyclops & daphnia, but study what the pet shop will sell you! These are normally for adult Brine Shrimp.
Storage
If you are buying small amounts (1 month) of shrimp eggs than they will be ok in your fish room, however the moisture in the air will stick to the eggs, and shorten the storage life!
Larger amounts are best kept in the freezer and your hatchery can then be taken to the freezer and a spoon of eggs added, I have kept a tin of opened brine shrimp eggs this way for twelve year and still had excellent hatch rates, I have seen it stated on the internet that they are to be stored in a fridge! This is a definite ‘No-No’
I will have to Google, the Siberian Lakes to see if their temperature is different to the Californian Salt Lakes!