Common Name: Brine Shrimp

Scientific Name: Artemia

Species:
Artemia franciscana
Artemia gracilis
Artemia monica
Artemia parartemia
Artemia parthenogenetica
Artemia persimilis
Artemia pollicaris
Artemia salina
Artemia sinica
Artemia tibetiana
Artemia tunesiana
Artemia urmiana

"There are mixed views on whether all brine shrimp are part of one species or whether the varieties that have been identified are properly classified as separate species"

Other Names: Sea Monkey

Origin: Brine shrimp are found world wide in salt water, though not in oceans.

Maximum Size: 1 cm on average.

Life Span: Brine shrimp complete their cycle in about one year. But they because of a characteristic called cryptobiosis, "Brine shrimp eggs are metabolically inactive and can remain in total stasis for several years while in dry oxygen-free conditions, even at temperatures below freezing."

Care: Brine shrimp eggs will hatch in salt water within a few hours of being mixed in. They are more commonly fed to fish fry rather than kept and grown; but their care is not all to different from that of baby fish. Keeping them alive can prove to be a challenge, but I've had success by just keeping the water very clean, with some light aeration.

Feeding: Brine shrimp larvae (nauplii) generally feed on micro algae, but will readily eat yeast, wheat flour, soybean powder, and egg yolk. Adults will eat similar foods, but can also be fed on a diet of fish flake food. Because this diet lacks the natural nutrition brine shrimp would find in a wild environment (from algae spores, and plant-like protists), they seldom live a full year in captivity.

Sexing/Breeding: Brine shrimp will spawn if kept alive long enough. They require brackish to marine like salinity to reproduce, and eggs hatch within a day. Its in breeding that sex's become apparent, females will develop dark spots on what i guess is their back? These are the eggs. (I'm not completely sure if brine shrimp have sexes, or if they're both.)

Comments: "The nutritional properties of newly hatched brine shrimp make them particularly suitable to be sold as aquarium food as they are high in lipids and unsaturated fatty acids (but low in calcium). These nutritional benefits are likely to be one reason that brine shrimp are found only in highly salinated waters, with reasonable temperatures, as these areas are uninhabitable for potential predators."







I post this in freshwater because brine shrimp are typically used to feed small fish and fry. If it needs to be moved to a more appropriate selection by all means do so. And if anyone sees something that I'm wrong about please call me out on it so i can change it.

This post has been edited by GuppyDude: Aug 22 2007, 12:30 AM

For the record, fairy shrimp are different to brine shrimp.

Brine shrimp live entirely in seawater (and can tolerate remarkably high salinities). They reproduce in the right conditions and can sustain themselves as a culture. Brine shrimp are much easier to keep.

Fairy shrimp are freshwater animals. When they reproduce they lay eggs that, like triops eggs, generally need to be dried out before they'll hatch out.