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Science Projects > Life Science Projects > Brine Shrimp Project  

Brine Shrimp Project

Our brine shrimp eggs come in a vial with enough eggs to hatch many batches of brine shrimp, which makes them a great subject for science experiments or science fair projects.

With some extra items like petri dishes and a 10x magnifying glass or stereo microscope , you can easily create a complete unit study.

What Are Brine Shrimp?

Brine shrimp are crustaceans that are classified in the phylum Arthropoda (the largest phylum in the animal kingdom, which includes insects and other creatures with jointed legs and exoskeletons).

They live in inland bodies of saltwater, such as the Great Salt Lake, but not in the ocean, where they would have too many predators.

These eggs can survive for years when dried and then, when added to salt water, hatch literally overnight!

The hatched shrimp larvae are called nauplii (singular is ‘nauplius’) and have a different anatomical structure than adult brine shrimp. A nauplius has only one eye, called a nauplier eye and has an extra pair of antennae with hairlike setae for swimming.

The nauplii molt , or shed their exoskeleton, about 12 hours after hatching. This brings them into the second larval stage. After several more moltings, they reach the adult stage; it only takes about eight days to mature from the time they hatch. (You can see an early nauplius stage in this picture of a brine shrimp.)

Adult brine shrimp have a pair of compound eyes as well as the nauplier eye. They also have 11 pairs of pleopods or leg-like appendages. The structure of the pleopods are designed for different functions: some are for swimming and the others are for scraping and filtering algae (the shrimp’s primary food source).

Mature brine shrimp might grow to as much as half an inch in length and live for up to three months.

Hatching & Raising Brine Shrimp

• Use a glass container as a hatching tank for the brine shrimp, either a wide-mouth quart jar or a shallow glass pan at least two inches deep (this will work best).
• Fill the container with one quart of salt-water solution : mix 1 to1-1/2 teaspoons of sea salt mixture or non-iodized table salt per cup of bottled water.
• (If you want to use tap water, let it sit for an hour so the chlorine settles. You can also use rock or aquarium salt.)
• The shrimp will die in salt water that is either too weak or too strong.
• Sprinkle about one sixteenth of a teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs into the dish: you don’t need to cover more than one square inch on the surface of the water. Leave the container in a room where bright sunlight can reach it. Your brine shrimp should start hatching in just 24 hours!
• The shrimp will live 1-3 days without food. If you want to keep them longer for a more in-depth study, feed them a very tiny amount of yeast – a few ‘grains’ as needed.
• You might also need to change the water occasionally, if it gets cloudy. Clean out unhatched eggs from the top of the container, which will allow more oxygen to get into the water.

Observing Brine Shrimp

Use a pipet or medicine dropper to ‘catch’ some of the shrimp and transfer them with sufficient water into a petri dish for easy observation. To view the sea monkeys under microscope look at them closely with low power (10-30x) magnification.

• What parts of the brine shrimp can you identify?
• What are their swimming habits?
• Eating habits?
• How do they use their phyllopods?
• How do they respond to light?
• If you can, compare the larval stage with the adult stage.

Keep track of your observations in a notebook and include sketches of the shrimp.

With a compound microscope , you can see a specimen at much higher magnification (40-400x). This will allow you to see details like the hairlike setae on the phyllopods.

Make a wet mount slide by adding 1-3 drops of water with a brine shrimp onto a concave slide , and placing a slide coverslip over it. You can keep track of your observations with our printable microscope worksheet .

Brine Shrimp Experiments: Effect of pH and Environmental Changes

Learn about the effects of the surrounding conditions on brine shrimp!

To start, test the pH level in the brine shrimp’s tank water: ideal conditions are a pH of around 8, but no lower than 5 and no higher than 10. Use pH paper for the test. To raise the pH level in the tank, add a little bit of baking soda.

Discover more with a project where you change the tank environment by adding pollutants .

Transfer about an equal number of brine shrimp to several petri dishes to be your test samples. Try adding 1-3 drops of a different solution to the water in each petri dish: vegetable oil, soap, vinegar, ammonia, or anything else that comes to mind.

Observe the samples at low power magnification and record what’s going on. How do the pollutants affect the sample? Is there a difference visible in twenty minutes? One hour? Three? How might you counteract the pollutants?

You can also try hatching several batches of shrimp at a time, using different hatchery conditions for each batch.

• Fill 3-4 petri dishes with different solutions: you might use plain tap water, water with a low pH (acidic), and regular salt water to be the control that you can compare the results to.
• Before you start, hypothesize which solution will have the best results and which will have the worst.
• Sprinkle a small amount of eggs into each dish.
• After 24 hours, check on the dishes again.
• Has anything happened? What are the results after 48 hours? 72 hours?
• Use a magnifying glass for your observations, and make sketches. Were you right about which solutions would work best and worst?
• How do you think factors such as temperature (colder or warmer) or more or less light might affect the hatching success rate of the brine shrimp?

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Investigating Hatching of Brine Shrimp Eggs

Carolina labsheets™.

In this lab students study the hatching of brine shrimp eggs and design an experiment to see what factors influence hatching. Brine shrimp, genus Artemia, are found in saline lakes on all continents except Antarctica. They tolerate a wide range of salt concentrations. Brine shrimp produce two different types of eggs. In addition to thin-shelled summer eggs that develop at a steady rate and then hatch, they produce thick-shelled winter eggs in which development of the embryo is arrested at a certain stage. These eggs, also called cysts, can survive harsh conditions (such as drought) for long periods of time and then resume development and hatch when environmental conditions are favorable. Both types of brine shrimp eggs hatch into larvae called nauplii.

Needed Materials

• Brine Shrimp Eggs (142240)
• petri dishes
• dropping pipets
• Synthetic Sea Salt (671440) or non-iodized table salt
• stereomicroscopes
• double-sided transparent tape
• soft-bristled artist’s brush (173094, pk of 12)
• clear transparency film

Optional Materials

Depending on the projects that students develop, you may have to add to the materials list. See Procedures

Ensure that students understand and adhere to safe laboratory practices when performing any activity in the classroom or lab. Demonstrate the protocol for correctly using the instruments and materials necessary to complete the activities, and emphasize the importance of proper usage. Use personal protective equipment such as safety glasses or goggles , gloves , and aprons when appropriate. Model proper laboratory safety practices for your students and require them to adhere to all laboratory safety rules.

Students may work individually or in groups of two or four.

Brainstorm factors that might influence hatching success of brine shrimp eggs. (Examples include the effects of salt concentration, light exposure, temperature, pH, and presence of various chemicals, such as alcohol or detergents.) After the brainstorm, students design their experiments and present their plans for your approval, including their materials lists. Be certain that all needed materials are available, are safe for students to use, and are not restricted by your school district. Each plan should note how each hatching chamber will be marked for identification. Each group may run one control chamber and one experimental chamber, or one group might run control chambers while the others run experimental chambers. You may decide for all groups to test variations of the same factor, e.g., salt concentration.

It is best to set up hatching chambers on a Monday so that students can record hatching data for 4 consecutive days. They can then analyze their data and present their reports the following week.

To simulate natural seawater, which contains about 3.5% or 35 ppt (parts per thousand) dissolved salts, dissolve 35 g of synthetic sea salt or non-iodized table salt in water to make 1 L of solution. Use this as the standard salt solution for hatching eggs. (Brine shrimp eggs will hatch in water several times saltier than that.) In preparing the solution, use springwater or tap water that has been treated to remove chlorine and chloramine. About 30 mL of solution is needed for each hatching chamber.

Set up one or more of the following workstations.

Chamber Preparation: petri dishes marker double-sided tape sheet of transparency film hole punch scissors

Egg Pickup: vial or dish of brine shrimp eggs small paintbrush

Brine shrimp removed from the hatching chambers during counting can be fed to aquarium fish or killed by discarding them into a vial of alcohol. A student may be interested in growing them to adulthood as a special project. See our Brine Shrimp CareSheet for culture methods.

Answer Key to Questions Asked on the  Student LabSheet

The data shown below are for a control group of 46 eggs hatched in a standard 3.5% marine salt solution at 25°C and pH of 7. Depending on your students’ abilities, you may have them design their own data tables, the class may brainstorm a data table design, or you may suggest the design shown in the sample tables that follow. Notice that the raw data is converted to “% Hatched” to account for variation in the initial number of eggs. Although the same data is used in both tables, Table 1 is based on the number of eggs hatched per 24-hour period, and Table 2 is based on the cumulative numbers of eggs hatched. When graphed, Table 2 gives a clearer view of hatching rate. Table 1 gives a better view of the time period during which the most eggs hatched and produces a very different graph from a graph of Table 2’s data.

Students can pool the data from their experiments and posit an ideal set of conditions for hatching brine shrimp eggs.

Sample Data Table 1

Initial number of eggs    46   

Sample Data Table 2

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A Scientific, Economic, and Common-Sense Approach to Brine Shrimp Hatching

Author: Gary Lange and Mike Hellweg

The authors explore the theories and practicalities of brine shrimp hatching, using their own research to test previously published reports.

Methodology

Part of the process in which our overall body of knowledge grows is through the so-called scientific method, wherein a scientist makes an observation, proposes a hypothesis regarding that observation, tests that hypothesis through various methods, reviews the results of those tests in regard to the hypothesis, and either modifies the hypothesis and repeats the above or publishes the results of those tests to other scientists for them to comment upon and attempt to replicate to prove or disprove the hypothesis. This is a much simplified version of what is known as peer review. It also works for the aquarium hobby, and  TFH  provides an excellent international forum for hobbyists to perform our own version of the scientific method.

In the November 2006 issue of  TFH  an article on hatching brine shrimp appeared, and the author reached some conclusions that we (Gary and Mike) questioned (remember, this is the intent of publication). We don’t mean this article as a criticism of that author’s work, but rather a review of our attempt to prove or disprove the methodology she used to reach her conclusions. The results we obtained appear to invalidate some of those conclusions, and some others need a bit more explanation.

As a scientist, Gary became concerned by the science behind some of the conclusions reached by the author. Mike, the business guy, decided that the economics might need a bit of investigation. While our perspective is that of advanced hobbyists with several hundred species spawned between us and tens of thousands of fish raised successfully, the techniques outlined for hatching and feeding fry brine shrimp nauplii didn’t seem quite practical for the average hobbyist either. In this article we will explain our methodology for testing and proving or refuting the science, the economic reasoning, and the hatching methods given in that article.

We hope this article will leave you with good common-sense methods for hatching your own  Artemia nauplii. You will have the confidence that you are using proven techniques that will allow you to hatch and feed the optimum amount of the most nutritious shrimp, and cost you the least amount of both money and time.

Brine Shrimp History

Brine shrimp has been a readily available food source for hobbyists since the 1930s. Unlike other live foods, brine shrimp does not need to be cultured continuously, but rather hatched as needed to provide a quick source of live food for fish. As time went by and harvest and processing methods for their eggs improved, brine shrimp became a staple not only for hobbyists, but also for the aquaculture industry around the world.

Brine Shrimp Basics

Brine shrimp are known to science by their genus name,  Artemia . It is not entirely clear what species we are dealing with in the hobby, but most species have similar requirements, so it’s not that important to us as hobbyists. There are likely several species found in very salty conditions all around the world, from Australia to China to the Middle East to the United States. They are a major food source for migratory birds in many places. Much research has been done on their nutritional profile, life cycle, proper feeds for their culture, and every other aspect of their lives.

We won’t go into details here, if you want to research it further we suggest the  Plankton Culture Manual by Frank H. Hoff and Terry W. Snell, which is packed with culture and nutritional profile information on  Artemia  and many other planktonic animals. For our purposes, we’ll mainly look at the first 12 or so hours post-hatch, where the nauplii are most nutritious with a body-fat (several different HUFAs that are essential to fish growth) content of up to 32 percent of total body weight, according to Hoff and Snell. As they reach the end of their first development stage, called the first “instar,” this can drop considerably—by as much as 39 percent (Hoff and Snell).

Over this time period, which can last about 12 hours, they do not feed, as their mouth and anus are not fully developed. So they live off of their fat reserves, gradually depleting their value as a food source for our fish. If not fed by the end of the second instar (at approximately 24 hours post hatch), Hoff and Snell report they may lose up to 1/5 of their body weight and more than a quarter of their nutritional value. We can assume by this that the sooner post-hatch that we feed them to our fish, the better the nutritional value for our fry.

Brine shrimp beyond the first molt (instar two and beyond) eat free-floating algae, detritus, and bacteria. From a hobbyist’s perspective there is little practical or nutritive value to raising large quantities of adult brine shrimp to feed your fish. Even just doing so for one aquarium would entail using much more room than would be practical for the number of shrimp raised. It is much more practical to purchase live adult brine shrimp, gut-load them, and feed them to your fish. However, newly hatched  Artemia , known scientifically as nauplii, are extremely nutritious, very easy to hatch on short notice as needed, and very practical and economical.

As to the amount consumed by young fish, for optimum health and growth it is recommended by most breeders to feed the fry as much as they will eat. Obviously consumption depends upon size, so a single fry can consume dozens to several hundred or more nauplii per day. For example, some authors (e.g., Alisa Abbot in the T.F.H. book  The Complete Guide to Dwarf Seahorses in the Aquarium , among others) report that juvenile seahorses can eat as many as 3000 nauplii per juvenile per day! So you can see that to properly feed a batch of growing fry you will easily utilize the entire hatch each day.

Holding part of a hatch over for another day’s feed does not make nutritional sense unless you are feeding it properly (nor does it make practical sense). Nutritionally and practically speaking, it’s just more simple and healthy to hatch out fresh nauplii each day.

Hatching Brine Shrimp Eggs

After checking our notes we found that we both use a very similar method for hatching brine shrimp. This method has been used by both of us since the early 1980s, so it is time-tested and all of the “bugs” have been worked out.

For a 2-liter soda bottle hatcher, we add 1.4 liters of warm (80° to 82°F) chloramine-containing (that’s right, we don’t use dechlor or anything else!) tap water (125 ppm GH and 3 degrees 54 ppm KH). Add 2 tablespoons of salt and a teaspoon of Epsom salt, stirring until dissolved. This gives a specific gravity of about 1.019. Both of us add about ½ tablespoon (1½ teaspoons, by weight 4.2 g) of brine shrimp eggs to the hatcher. Many of the brine shrimp companies have suggested using ½ teaspoon/liter, but we found that you don’t have that much of a loss in hatch rate. In our hatching table we’ve used a slightly lower amount of eggs for our 1 liter and 500 ml hatchers, which is slightly closer to the ½ teaspoon of eggs per liter.

Now both of us do something that most people don’t do. We add three drops of plain, unscented chlorine bleach. In the wild, mats or rafts of floating brine shrimp eggs can become rather nasty before harvest—they serve as a home to many types of bacteria and larger critters that can be harmful in our aquaria. Our friend and mentor Rosario LaCorte mentioned that he started adding the bleach to help lower some of the potential biological load that comes along with the brine shrimp eggs, and to kill any nasty hitchhikers that might be on the outer casing of the cysts. Even with the best processing methods, some undesirable critters can get through. The drops of bleach kill anything on the outside of the eggs without wasting the time of completely decapsulating the eggs.

Without the chlorine, when hatching larger quantities of eggs, you might notice that the eggs get scummy and may even start to clump together because of the bacteria. The chlorine evaporates fairly quickly with all of the bubbling of the eggs, so it’s not around to harm the brine shrimp when they hatch.

We both hatch our eggs at a temperature of 80° to 84°F with an ambient light source nearby. Eggs are vigorously bubbled with a rigid piece of 3/16-inch tubing at the bottom of the v-shaped bottle. Many websites recommend a light source to help hatch eggs, although we haven’t checked whether it really makes any difference. At these temperatures we (and most researchers) find that almost all of the eggs that are going to hatch have already hatched in 18 to 24 hours.

Again we stress that you want to feed the brine shrimp to your fish as soon as they hatch, as this is when they are the most nutritious. Over the next 12 hours they will begin to utilize these lipids and grow. For this entire period they cannot feed, as their mouth has not yet developed, so feeding them would be pointless. At this time the biggest risk thing we have to worry about is suffocation if there is too heavy a bioload in the water, such as from a large bacterial population, or if the water isn’t circulating rapidly enough.

If you wait longer than 12 hours post hatch they will have molted and they will need to be fed before feeding them to your fish. If you don’t need to hatch as many brine shrimp as we do each day then use a smaller hatching bottle (see table) and fewer eggs. You can enrich older shrimp by feeding a HUFA-containing supplement, though this will take up to an additional 12 hours  after  they have completed their first molt. Recently in his reading Mike discovered a method for enriching newly hatched brine shrimp or older shrimp with HUFAs.

Common Brine Shrimp Hatching Mistakes

Incorrect Measurements: Many people add too little or way too much salt. Either one can cause you not to have an optimal hatch. This is also true for measuring the shrimp eggs. If you start adding too much over our recommended ½ tablespoon per 1.4 liters of water, you will have diminishing returns.

Poor Quality Eggs and Improper Storage: Buy a one-pound sealed can of eggs and buy at least an 80 percent hatch rate. When you open them for the first time, pour the eggs in a jar that can be tightly sealed, store them in the freezer or the refrigerator, and add a food-grade desiccant pack to keep moisture down.

Retrieve the necessary eggs for hatching from the jar quickly and seal the lid tightly as soon as you are finished. You don’t want to keep introducing moisture to the eggs each time you open the container, and the natural humidity in the air will do that. Whatever you do, don’t bring the jar back up to room temperature each and every time you want to measure out some eggs. That’s a horrible waste of your time and it continues to freeze and thaw your eggs. Eggs stored properly will still produce high percentage hatches, even years after opening the can.

Using Soft Water: People living in areas of soft water have often complained that they can’t hatch brine shrimp. Measure the pH of your shrimp solution before and after hatching. If it’s still not pH 8 or higher after they hatch then you need to add some buffer to your water. Add about ¼ teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) per liter of hatching solution.

Incorrect Temperature: Below 78°F it will take up to 36 hours for most of your shrimp to hatch. You’ll end up waiting too long and end up with less nutritious shrimp as they molt into their second and third instars. Over about 86°F and the nauplii will suffocate quickly. You’ll end up with a smelly mess in the hatcher as well. If you don’t have warm fishrooms like ours, then put your hatchers in an old 10-gallon aquarium with a lid and a small 25-watt light. Check the temperature but you should be able to get somewhere in the range of 80° to 84°F degrees and you gain a light source, which is supposed to help with hatching. You can also fill a 10-gallon aquarium with 3 to 4 inches of water and a submersible heater to keep the hatcher warm. Again use a lid on the tank to keep the heat inside the tank and hatchers warm.

Not Enough Air Bubbling Through the Eggs: If the eggs come to rest they won’t hatch, and brine shrimp need oxygen to live. Gary the science nerd used a common 9- x 22-inch fish bag and measured how long it took to fill it to the 16-inch mark with air from the hatcher’s airline. He then filled the bag up to that mark with water and measured it. The flow rate is 1.6 liters of air per minute, but if you just bubble the heck out of it you’ll be close. Make sure you clean that rigid tubing out each time you clean the hatcher, too.

Reusing the Hatch Water: Tap water, salt, baking soda (if needed), and Epsom salt are all very inexpensive. It makes no economic, time-saving, or practical sense to reuse hatch water. The less than two cents per hatch you save will more than be made up for by the decreased hatch due to the fact that the reused water is filthy with biological material that competes with the newly hatched shrimp for oxygen. Sniff it. Would you use that water to raise food to feed any other animal? Why use it to raise food to feed your fish? You may have spent hundreds of hours working to get the spawn you are trying to feed, or they may be expensive fish. Why waste that time and money and use waste water?

In addition, if you use the “LaCorte bleach method” (which we strongly recommend) you will kill all of the bacteria, which will begin decomposing, and this will also compete with the nauplii for oxygen.

Finally, look at the time taken to prep the reused water. It is much more than that of setting up new water. We timed it. It only takes about 30 seconds to a minute to set up a fresh hatcher from beginning to end. Trying to filter out and remove unhatched cysts and dead shrimp from the waste water can take 5 to 10 minutes. There certainly is no time savings there.

Hatching and Feeding Baby Brine Shrimp Cost

Iodized Table Salt: .19 per pound

GSL Eggs: Grade A, 80-percent hatch rate, $25 per pound (454 g) including shipping

½ TLB of eggs = 4.2 g or 108½ TLB servings per 454 g container

Epsom Salt: .67 per pound or 1.013 cents per teaspoon

2 Liter Hatcher   1 Liter Hatcher   500 ml Hatcher

Water Added      1.4 liters 700 ml      350 ml

Salt2 tbsp (1.73 ¢)   1 tbsp (.864 ¢)   .5 tbsp (.432 ¢)

Eggs½ tbsp (23.15 ¢) ½ tsp (7.72 ¢)    ¼ tsp (3.86 ¢)

Epsom Salt1 tsp (1.013 ¢)   ½ tsp (.507 ¢)    ¼ tsp (.25 ¢)

Total $/Hatch    $ 0.2589    $ 0.0907    $ 0.0454

Total/365 days   $94.50 *    $33.10      $16.57

Time per day     < 1 minute prep  < 1 minute prep   < 1 minute prep

Time/365 days    < 6 hours   < 6 hours   < 6 hours

Time to reuse    > 30 hours/year   > 30 hours/year   > 30 hours/year

At first glance this may sound like a lot of money, but consider that in the same time period Mike is also using approximately $200 (wholesale cost) in high quality flake food, approximately $150 (wholesale cost) in freeze dried krill, plankton and bloodworms, and a lot of home-cultured live foods. Looked at in this perspective of his spending approximately $1 a day on processed foods, at just under 26 cents a day, newly hatched brine shrimp is very economical. Now sit back, enjoy your hobby, and spend the time you would have spent worrying and reusing that nasty brine shrimp hatch water enjoying your fish. After all, isn’t that why you got into this wonderful hobby in the first place?

The Science of Brine Shrimp Hatching

I don’t have a microscope or a unit to count brine shrimp at home, and neither do the majority of hobbyists. I have compared 10 ml samples of two different methods and allowed them to settle in a graduated cylinder and did a quick “eye count” on how many ml of orange I had at the bottom of the container. With some of the losses suggested in the original article, however, a 50-percent loss would be easy to see (in the hatcher and in the 10 milliliter graduated cylinders). To check the different methods I put two 2-liter hatchers side by side so that the light and temperatures would be the same. I then compared the apparent hatch differences by “eyeball” and graduated cylinder to see if I could tell any obvious differences.

Test 1: Does adding a dechlorinator that removes heavy metals make a difference in my hatch rate?

Our optimized method, with 3 drops of chlorine, versus a hatcher treated with a proprietary water conditioner. The dechlorinated hatcher had more clumps of eggs, not unlike a hatcher set up without the addition of a few drops of bleach. I found pretty much the same amount of hatched shrimp in each.

Conclusion: I don’t have enough copper or other toxic heavy metals in my water or my pipes to inhibit the hatching of brine shrimp eggs.

Test 2: Is 24 hours at 82°F enough time to hatch most of the shrimp?

At T=24 hr the aeration was removed from the hatcher and the nauplii were allowed to settle for about 5 minutes. A 25-watt light source was place near the base of the hatcher to attract and further separate the brine shrimp from the unhatched eggs. We removed them by siphoning them through a brine shrimp net using a 3/16-inch rigid piece of tubing connected to airline tubing. This is our typical method of removing nauplii from the unhatched eggs for feeding to our fish. The rest of the hatching solution was poured back and incubated as before. The solution was checked at 32 hours and 48 hours to see if there were any increases in nauplii in the hatcher. The result was that no more brine shrimp hatched out.

Conclusion: At 82° to 84° degrees, 24 hours is plenty of time to hatch all of the eggs.

Test 3: My water versus RO water, optimized method.

Although both samples started out at pH 8, after hatching the RO sample was in the low 7.1 range. It was also obvious that there were fewer shrimp than in the hatcher with my tap water. The addition of ¼ teaspoon of baking soda per liter solved the problem and the two were then equal.

Conclusion: If you have soft water, add ¼ teaspoon of baking soda per liter to the hatching solution.

Test 4: Copper Toxicity and Brine Shrimp Hatching

The previous article reprinted a chart that showed that at 0.0064 parts per million copper (6.4 micrograms per liter or 0.1 micromolar of copper) only 50 percent of the brine shrimp eggs hatched. That concentration of only 6.4 micrograms of the copper metal per liter could potentially be reached using water that had been in the typical household copper pipes. The water from my pipes didn’t seem to have enough copper in them to inhibit the hatching as shown in Test 1, so I decided to add a much higher dose of copper sulfate and see if that could inhibit the hatch rate. Remember it had been stated that an equivalent of 0.1 micro molar copper would inhibit 50 percent of the hatch. I made up a 1 millimolar solution of copper sulfate and then added enough to the hatcher to make a 1.0 micromolar solution of copper (64 micrograms of Cu per liter) or  10 times  the amount that was supposed to be harmful to hatching. Even a 10 micro molar solution—or  100 times that “harmful amount” of copper—was tested, with the result being a decent hatch rate.

Results: As shown in the photograph comparing the two solutions on this page, there really is no difference between the hatchers.

Conclusion: The effect of copper in your water on your hatch rate is an illusion. See our common mistakes section for a more likely scenario to hatching woes.

Interpreting the Data

If you will look back carefully at the original article, pay close attention to the graph showing copper toxicity. They supposedly used only viable eggs by hydrating first and removing the eggs that shouldn’t hatch. We should have expected that the maximum percentage for the control would have been 100 percent or pretty close to it. Also note that they were still measuring hatching out at 70 hours or almost three days! Even the neophyte hobbyist hatching brine shrimp knows that if it takes you three days to hatch your brine shrimp you are doing something wrong.

In my field of science we build upon experiments of other experts who have performed careful experiments before us (the scientific method described above). For instance we know that if we want to grow human cells in the lab, most of them have to be grown at very close to body temperature or 37°C (98.6°F). We also know that most of the cell lines require a certain amount of carbon dioxide in the system so we have 5 percent CO 2  with them in the incubator. If one were to place them instead at say, 25 degrees, and then remove the CO 2 , we would expect that their growth rate and survival rates would be very poor. If we were to add a few milliliters coffee to this mix at the same time though, would you be inclined to say that the coffee killed the cells? Of course not.

My point is that you have to be very careful how you interpret data and run experiments. In the world of science, the term “Occam’s razor” refers to the idea that the less complicated explanation is probably the right one, and one should make as few assumptions as possible. Applied to this case, Occam’s razor would suggest that, when you have trouble with brine shrimp hatching, you shouldn’t go blaming the copper or zinc in your water, but rather you should check first to see if your pH is too low because you live in a soft water region. Measure your salt, and make sure you are using the optimal hatching conditions.

Newly hatched brine shrimp are an excellent source of nutrition for aquarium fish, especially fry. They are inexpensive, convenient, easy to hatch, and are readily available when needed. There is no reason to make hatching or harvesting complicated, to look for false economies in methods such as reusing hatch water, or to worry about potential “threats” to your brine shrimp posed by things such as zinc or copper (or even chlorine, for that matter!) in your tap water.

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Brine Shrimp Hatching Instructions

Instructions for hatching brine shrimp.

In the page below you will find the Web's most complete and simple-to-follow brine shrimp hatching instructions for hatching eggs in a conventional cone-shaped container (Imhoff cone or inverted bottle), or using a Hatchery Dish!

Storing Brine Shrimp Eggs

Before we begin, you need to start with viable, properly stored eggs. All brine shrimp eggs need to be stored as follows:

• in a tightly sealed container;
• free from moisture; and
• in a cool environment at or below 40°F. (Refrigeration is ideal for short term storage, i.e., less than three to four weeks. F or longer term storage, eggs are best kept at or below freezing. )

We recommend that upon receiving your eggs, divide them into an amount that will be consumed within three to four weeks and store this amount in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator; the remainder should be stored, also in a tightly sealed container, in the freezer. Keep in mind that freezing can lower metabolic activity and delay hatch-out. We suggest removing egg from the freezer one day in advance of using it to allow the embryos to acclimate.

The above storage guidelines apply to all brine shrimp eggs, whether in opened or unopened tins.

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Hatchery Dish

Large Hatchery Cone with Stand plus 1.75 oz. Brine Shrimp Egg

Imhoff Cone Rack

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Hatching: Environment Conditions

Follow these guidelines for the best results when using conical hatching containers such as our 2-Liter standing cone , an Imhoff cone , or an inverted soda bottle:

• Salinity: When preparing your hatching solution, a 25 parts per thousand (ppt) salt solution is ideal under most conditions. This equates to around 1.018 specific gravity as measured with a hydrometer. If you lack a hydrometer, this salinity can be achieved by dissolving approximately 1 and 2/3 tablespoons of salt in one quart (roughly, one liter) of water. Be sure to use non iodized salt.
• pH: Proper pH can be important in hatching brine shrimp. A starting pH of 8.0 or higher is recommended. In areas where the water pH is below 7, Epson salt or magnesium sulfate can be added at the rate of 1/2 teaspoon per quart of hatching solution.
• Temperature: Optimum water temperature for a 24-hour complete hatch is 80-82°F (26-28°C). Lower temperatures will result in a longer hatching time and inefficient hatches. Do not exceed 86° (30°C). Do not place an immersion heater directly into your hatching container! An immersion bath is a preferred method to maintain constant hatching temperatures. Alternatively, an incandescent bulb placed above the hatching cone can provide sufficient heat in the right environment.
• Light: Illumination is necessary to trigger the hatching mechanism within the embryo during the first few hours of incubation. Maintaining a light source during the entire incubation period is recommended to obtain optimum hatch results and, as mentioned above, for temperature control.
• Aeration: Constant aeration is necessary to keep cysts in suspension and to provide sufficient oxygen levels for the cysts to hatch. A minimum of 3 parts per million dissolved oxygen during the incubation is recommended. Strong aeration should not damage or hurt the brine shrimp cysts or nauplii. A [rigid air tube] is ideal to direct air to the bottom of the cone and to prevent unhatched eggs from settling. We do not recommend an airstone.
• Stocking Density: 1 gram per liter or quart or approximately 1/2 level teaspoon of cysts per quart (or liter) is recommended for optimum hatching percentages. A higher stocking density will result in a lower hatch percentage and difficulty separating hatched nauplii from unhatched egg and shell.
• Hatching Cone: Flat-bottom hatching vessels should be avoided. Cone or "V" bottomed containers are best to insure that the cysts remain in suspension during hatching. Be sure to thoroughly wash the hatching cone with a light chlorine solution, rinse, and allow to air-dry between uses. Avoid soap. Soap will leave a slight residue which will foam from aeration during hatching and leave cysts stranded above the water level.
• Incubation Period: Generally, the optimum incubation time is 24 hours. Egg which has been properly stored for more than 2-3 months may require additional incubation time — up to 30-36 hours. Oftentimes, eggs will hatch in as few as 18 hours. If a smaller size nauplii (Instar I) is desired, a harvest time of 18 hours is recommended after which Instar I (first stage) nauplii can be collected before metamorphosis into Instar II.

Helpful Hint:

Brine shrimp egg is sometimes very buoyant. In order to maximize the hatching percentage, it is sometimes helpful to swirl the water inside the hatching container with your finger once or twice at intervals in the first 4 to 6 hours of incubation in order to knock down eggs that have been stranded on the side of the container above the water-line. After about 6 hours, the eggs are usually well-hydrated and will stay in the water column.

Hatching Procedure

The following steps will achieve optimum brine shrimp hatch rates.

• Set Up: Place hatching cone or similarly shaped vessel in well-lit area. Cone should be semi-translucent for ease of harvesting and light transmission.
• Add Water: Fill cone with water and adjust salinity to 25 ppt (parts per thousand). Optimum hatching temperature is 82°F (28°C).
• Add Cysts: Add cysts at the rate of 1 gram per liter.
• Aerate: Provide adequate aeration to keep cysts in suspension.
• Hatch: Depending upon water temperature, cysts should hatch in approximately 18-36 hours.
• Harvest: After hatching brine shrimp, turn off or remove aeration and wait several minutes for the shells and and baby brine shrimp (or nauplii) to separate. Newly hatched nauplii will settle to the bottom of the cone or move towards a light source; the shells will float to the surface. Once separated, the nauplii can be siphoned from the bottom with a length of air tubing or gently drained through the bottom of the cone through a valve, if so equipped.
• Rinse: The warm incubation temperatures and metabolites from the hatching medium create ideal conditions for a bacteria bloom. Rinsing of the baby brine shrimp in a fine mesh net or sieve using clean fresh or salt water is important before feeding them to your fish.
• Clean Equipment: Tanks and brine shrimp hatching equipment should be cleaned and disinfected routinely.

Hatching Cone:

Flat-bottom hatching vessels should be avoided. Cone or "V" bottomed containers are best to insure that the cysts remain in suspension during hatching. Be sure to thoroughly wash the hatching cone with a light chlorine solution, rinse, and allow to air-dry between uses. Avoid soap. Soap will leave a slight residue which will foam from aeration during hatching and leave cysts stranded above the water level.

Incubation Period:

Generally, the optimum incubation time is 24 hours. Egg which has been properly stored for more than 2-3 months may require additional incubation time — up to 30-36 hours. Oftentimes, eggs will hatch in as few as 18 hours. If a smaller size nauplii (Instar I) is desired, a harvest time of 18 hours is recommended after which Instar I (first stage) nauplii can be collected before metamorphosis into Instar II.

Harvesting or collecting brine shrimp

Harvesting newly hatched nauplii requires some patience and the method used depends upon your equipment and your needs. When collecting from an Imhoff cone or inverted soda bottle, one method is to remove the airline and allow the nauplii to settle to the bottom of the cone. This will take several minutes. As the nauplii accumulate at the apex of the cone, use the airline with rigid tubing attached to siphon the nauplii into a collection dish filled with fresh water. Do not allow the nauplii to become tightly packed at the bottom of the cone and risk suffocation. After siphoning, wait several minutes and repeat. Take care to avoid siphoning the unhatched eggs that normally settle first. If you have difficulty siphoning the newly hatched nauplii without siphoning unhatched eggs or shell, we suggest that you finish siphoning the majority of naupllii into the holding dish, rinse out the cone and then pour the dish containing nauplii and water back into the cone, add clean water to the cone and repeat the siphoning process as the nauplii again settle to the apex of the cone. It is a good practice to pass the nauplii and water through a small mesh to minimize the introduction of the hatching water into the aquarium.

Stay tuned for more advice when harvesting from a 2-Liter Cone equipped with a stopcock or valve at the apex of the cone.

Final thought

Many people, especially experienced aquarists, are comfortable using the method described above, or variations thereof, for collecting or harvesting newly hatched brine shrimp. Regardless of your experience level and quality of the brine shrimp, some unhatched eggs and shell invariably sneak into your aquarium. For most fish and in most situations, this is not a problem. However, sometimes it can be. For situations where unhatched eggs and shell will cause problems, we suggest using the [Hatchery Dish]. This method eliminates the transfer of unhatched eggs and shell into your aquarium. It is ideal for small set-ups and for raising smaller amounts of sensitive fry or for keeping seahorses or jellies.

For large set-ups, commercial hatcheries, public aquarium exhibits and the like, Brine Shrimp Direct offers another tank-tested solution – shell-free EZ Egg! with an 80% hatch-rate.

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